Can’t wait to bite into a fresh, sweet peach? Georgia peach
farmers can’t wait for you to
do that, either.

But the 1997 crop still has a long way to go before it’s ready
for that first juicy bite.

“Winter temperatures have satisfied the chill requirement on
just about every variety of
peaches across the state,” said Butch Ferree, a fruit crops
horticulturist specializing in
peaches with the University of Georgia Extension Service. “It’s
looking good so far.”

Peaches require a certain number of hours below 45 degrees to
set fruit properly. The
number of hours varies with the peach variety.

An early warmup and three major freezes (February 5, March 9 and
March 19-20) in 1996
wiped out 95 percent of last year’s peach crop.

Peach trees bloom, bud and produce fruit only once each year.
Once the tender blooms
and buds froze, Ferree said, that was it.

Georgia farmers valued their crop at $3.4 million in 1996, a
painful drop from the $29.7
million crop in 1995.

“The 1996 crop loss won’t have much effect on the finished 1997
peach crop,” he said. “It
will cause some extra headaches for the farmers, though.”

Ferree said since they didn’t produce peaches last season, the
trees had an extra store of
energy. They’ll put that energy towards making more blooms and
peaches this year.

In mid-April, farmers have to thin the number of peaches on
their trees. They have to pick
some of the very young peaches. That allows the remaining fruit
to grow to the handful
size shoppers like at the markets.

For now, Ferree said, the crop’s looking good.

“We’ve had a few warm periods that have made us nervous,” he
said. “We sure don’t want
the crop to bloom and set fruit, and then get hit with freezing
temperatures again.”

Early spring temperatures in the 80s that last 10 days or more
can bring peach trees into
bloom. A later freeze into in the 20s or teens can be
disastrous.

The average bloom date for peaches in middle Georgia is in mid-
March. That’s usually just
after the last hard freeze that could damage tender peach buds.
But some of Georgia’s
peach-growing areas have already had warm temperatures. That’s
made the trees lose their
cold-hardiness.

Peach County farmers grow nearly half of Georgia’s peaches. The
trees there are right on
track for their chill hours.

“We entered the second week of February with 900-plus hours, and
we didn’t get them
too soon or too fast,” said Peach County extension agent Mark
Collier. “On average,
we’re right on what we need.”

Collier said farmers in his county are able to stay on schedule
with pruning chores, too.
And they realize they’ve got a bigger thinning chore this
year.

Farther south, in Brooks County, peach farmers have already
reported 50 percent bloom
in some major varieties. Farmers there produce about 10 percent
of the Georgia crop.

“We’ll pretty much just have to wait until the beginning of
April before we can get a good
indication of how the crop will do this year,” Ferree said. “A
lot of farmers may have to
buy some of those long-lasting, extra-strength heartburn
medicines — we’ve got about two
months to go before we’ll know.”