Georgian growers are having a hard time cultivating their famous stone fruit. Thanks to climate change, peach crops are struggling. Some experts are estimating losses of 95 percent this year.
“We’ve had some off crops, some bad years,” said Lawton Pearson, a fifth-generation peach farmer. “But we hadn’t had anything quite like this since 1955 … We just don’t have a peach crop.”
The tough year is in large part due to Georgia’s warming winters, with the first three months of 2023 being the hottest on record in the state. Peach trees, which enter dormancy after shedding their leaves in the fall, require a certain number of chill hours: time below 45 degrees Fahrenheit. This is necessary for the buds to bloom correctly in the spring. As the winters get warmer, those chill hours are harder to come by, and then early-spring freezes can stop blooms that were able to develop in their tracks.
Final numbers for total peach loss won’t be available until mid-August. However, experts claim that a conservative estimate is 95 percent loss, with that reflected in higher prices for the fruit this year.
Source: robbreport.com