J&L Family Farm in Montague County is located just outside the town of Bowie. Ferocious hail and strong winds wiped out the farm’s entire peach crop, ripping the flesh off the fruit of some 300 trees.
“I had never seen anything quite like this,” said farmer Joe Rodrigs. “We have lost peaches before, but you could always salvage a few. This was a complete loss.”
For some farmers, especially those in hard-hit Montague County, spring storms with heavy rain and hail devastated peach crops. Other growers in North Texas, including some in Parker County, fared better this summer.
‘Weather is big, big, big’
The rain — minus the hail — gave a boost to peaches at Hutton Peach Farm in Parker County, which grows about 40 acres of peach trees. A few times, mud prevented tractors from entering the fields, so farmers were forced to spray on foot for fungus and insects, a slower process, owner Gary Hutton said.
But the well-timed rainfall also meant Hutton did not need to irrigate crops, saving time and money. The farm’s fruit stand opened Memorial Day weekend, about 10 days earlier than usual.
“Rain helped speed things up a bit,” he said. “It’s a great year for peaches.”
Not so for B&G Gardens in Poolville, a small town in Parker County. Co-owner Ben Walker estimated that the farm lost about 60 percent of its peach crop to worms because near-constant rain prevented the growers from spraying the 240 trees.
In Cooper, Fairfield Farms, whose peaches are sold at Central Market in Fort Worth and Southlake, had a strong year. The farm added a variety developed by a breeder at Texas A&M University that requires fewer chill hours, farm manager Brady Johnson said.
When a late freeze blew through in the spring, Fairfield used frost protection wind machines, which circulate hot air, to save the crop.
“Weather is big, big, big,” Johnson said. “For peaches, you need some cold, some rain, no hail. It’s one thing after the other.”
Back in Montague County, Texas AgriLife Extension Agent Justin Hansard estimated that hail destroyed roughly half of the county’s peach crop.
John Doak, who owns Doak Orchards in Montague County, lost about one-third of his peach crop to hail, although he can sell some of it as “seconds,” with visible imperfections like bumps and bruises.
“Growing peaches takes skill,” said Doak, who has been at it for nearly 40 years. “After all these years, I’m still learning.”
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