redlevel
Gold Member
The peach crop in the Southeast took a hard hit over the weekend. I have seen reports from Chilton Co., Alabama of a 100 percent loss. Television reports from South Carolina and Georgia aren't quite as pessimistic, but generally acknowledge the destruction is severe.
I leased my home farm to one of the largest growers in Georgia a few years back, and the 80 acres of trees on my place should be in their first year of full production this year. I haven't had a chance to talk to the grower, but when I was driving to Easter Sunrise services at 6:30 Sunday morning, I looked at the car thermometer when I passed by the orchard. It was 27 degrees. I think it was at least that cold the previous morning. I would guess the loss in that orchard will be moderate to severe. It will be several days before they will be able to make a definitive estimate.
I can vaguely remember my Daddy helping a neighbor try to save his peaches some time in the middle 1950's. I remember him saying that at two in the morning, with old tires burning at many places in the orchard, that they looked at a thermometer hanging in a tree right next to one of the burning tires: it was 21 degrees. They all went home and went to bed. That was the year it was said that there weren't enough peaches picked in Georgia to make a pie.
I leased my home farm to one of the largest growers in Georgia a few years back, and the 80 acres of trees on my place should be in their first year of full production this year. I haven't had a chance to talk to the grower, but when I was driving to Easter Sunrise services at 6:30 Sunday morning, I looked at the car thermometer when I passed by the orchard. It was 27 degrees. I think it was at least that cold the previous morning. I would guess the loss in that orchard will be moderate to severe. It will be several days before they will be able to make a definitive estimate.
I can vaguely remember my Daddy helping a neighbor try to save his peaches some time in the middle 1950's. I remember him saying that at two in the morning, with old tires burning at many places in the orchard, that they looked at a thermometer hanging in a tree right next to one of the burning tires: it was 21 degrees. They all went home and went to bed. That was the year it was said that there weren't enough peaches picked in Georgia to make a pie.