By Clint Thompson
Georgia’s producers have begun peach harvest of this year’s crop. However, increased volume is not expected until early-to-mid June, according to Jeff Cook, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources agent for Peach and Taylor counties.
“This is about our normal start time. It wasn’t necessarily expected to be our normal start time after March 13, but it’s still slow right now,” said Cook, referencing the freeze event that impacted the Southeast. “We’ve got peaches, but you could probably come down here and show up late in the afternoon and we may not have peaches. We don’t have a ton of peaches right now.
“For any kind of real volume, I’m thinking first of June to mid-June.”
Like most other specialty crops grown in the Southeast, peaches were impacted by sub-freezing temperatures in mid-March. All things considering, though, it could have been a lot worse for this year’s peach harvest.
“Any time we have a freeze, you’re still seeing different things that happened when it got cold; some secondary blooms that formed fruit and they all of a sudden stopped growing. It’s still kind of questionable, but we came out of it really well from what it looked like,” Cook said. “I think we’ll have a good crop of peaches come. Once we get to the freestones, we’ve got a really good crop.”
The crop could use some rainfall. Most of Southeast Georgia and parts of Central Georgia are either abnormally dry or moderately dry, according to Thursday’s release of the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“A lot of our orchards now are irrigated so growers can supplement and give them a little bit (of water) if they need it. I’m sure almost all of them are getting a little bit of water right now. It’s bone-dry right now,” Cook said.
