Spring freezes especially hurt earliest varieties
Gilmer County’s overall peach crop for 2023 may be less plentiful than last year’s bumper crop, but there healthy peaches on the trees just about ready to pick.
Low temperatures dipped below freezing for nine days between March 11-21, and most of the low temperatures were in the 20s, according to the UGA Environmental Monitoring Network.
Those freezes did thin the peach crop here, especially damaging earlier varieties, but not as seriously as in Georgia’s “Peach Belt,” where growers are seeing more severe effects, noted Ashley Hoppers, Gilmer County extension agent.
“They were much further along (down there), and those trees were more physiologically mature when we had those untimely freezes in the 20s,” Hoppers said. “We had injury here, but it wasn’t what it could have been if (the trees here) were as far along as they were there. It’s not looking like a big bumper crop this year, but there are peaches.”
As the fruit begins to ripen, different Gilmer peach growers are seeing varying degrees of freeze impact to their crops.
Andy Futch, of R&A Orchards, said several of his early peach varieties were killed, but later ones are now coming in well.
“It’s fair to middling. We have peaches, but we don’t have a bumper crop. The late varieties are decent, but not abundant,” he added.
Damage to the early varieties has pushed back peach picking time a couple of weeks, noted Futch, who grows more than 35 varieties of the fruit.
“Normally, we would have done been picking peaches, but we probably won’t get started till the end of this week. We’d usually have them by Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully, by this coming weekend, we’ll have (some put out),” he added.
Lee Penland, of Penland’s Apple House, said a couple of his early variety peaches also got hit hard by the spring freezes, but the later varieties are in great shape.
“We’ve got a good peach crop,” he said.
Location of the different orchards was a big factor in how badly the freezes hurt the budding fruit, noted Penland, who grows peaches on the west end of the county. Most of the local peach growers are located on the east end.
“The locations varied in temperature a bunch around the county, and just one or two degrees makes a big difference. It’s amazing the difference in temperatures from one side of the county to another. I’ve seen it up to 10-12 degrees different,” Penland said.
Peaches grown here require longer chill hours, which, in this case, was beneficial to local growers, noted Penland.
“They grow different varieties (in middle and south Georgia). The peaches we grow in the mountains have longer chill hours, and it takes them x amount of hours before they start to bloom. That way, if the winter lasts a little longer, they stay dormant a little longer,” Penland said. “In south Georgia, they grow a lot of peaches that require only 300-400 chill hours. By February, they’re starting to bloom and grow peaches, but our trees are still dormant.”
Hoppers said even with a smaller overall crop this year, it’s still looking like a better season for peaches than in 2021 when the crop was decimated by late spring freezing. The trees rebounded last year and produced a stellar crop, she noted.
“We have peaches, and we had a huge bloom this year. We are not at 2021 (levels). The dicey weather did cause issues this year, but it did not put the farm out of business like in 2021, which was truly devastating,” Hoppers said.