Middle Georgia Peach Farmers Fear Another Freeze

Right now, farmers are happy about their prospects for this year’s peach crop, but warmer temperatures are starting to cause concern among local peach farmers. 

Georgia’s peach crop needs the cold weather for the trees  to bloom in the spring. On average, the trees need about 800 hours of ‘chill units’, or temperatures below 45 degrees.

With this year’s cold winter, middle Georgia has close to 1300 chill unit hours.

The abundance of hours below 45 degrees will not hurt the crop, but with our temperatures getting warmer, the trees will now start to bud.

The concern is that the budding trees will lose their fruit if the temperature becomes too cold again.

Duke Lane of Lane Southern Orchards says that while dropping temperature is a concern for his farm, it isn’t out of the ordinary.

“It’s a threat every year,” he says. “As a peach grower, and I’ve been involved in growing peaches for a long time. There’s always that threat of untimely cold weather.”

Lane also says that once the trees begin to bloom, a little bit of chilly weather can actually help his crop, and his bottom line.

“The trees have so many blooms on them, that if we don’t remove 80% of them…the fruit doesn’t size like we want it to. We’d rather do it ourselves, but if mother nature comes in and decides to give us a little help, then it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”