US (VA): Area's peach crops mostly come through cold winter, late frosts
“Our fruit crop looks pretty good,” said Jim Saunders of Saunders Brothers Orchard in Piney River. “We did have some damage to our early-[season] peaches. The crop was a little light, but now we’re getting into varieties where we have a normal crop, and our crop from now on out looks pretty good.”
In Virginia, peach season typically runs from early June through September. The cold winter means there are fewer early-season varieties of peaches available; “starting in mid July, however, expect a great crop of our best tasting varieties,” Elaine Lidholm, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said in an email.
“The weather conditions have been a little dry, which is perfect for developing a really sweet-tasting peach,” Lidholm said. “Peaches need water early in the season, which we got, but a drying-off period really brings out the sugar. We should have abundant supplies of peaches until at least Labor Day and most likely into the early part of September.”
Saunders said the orchard started harvesting June 7. Cynthia Chiles, who owns Chiles Peach Orchard in Crozet and Carter Mountain Orchard south of Charlottesville, said harvesting at her orchards began about a week ago.
“Super cold nights are not great for the trees,” Chiles said. “They don’t tolerate a lot of sub-zero weather, but certainly I think the biggest thing was a delayed spring and ripening.”
Still, “We’re very optimistic,” Chiles said.
Not all local growers fared as well. At Dickie Brothers Orchard in Roseland, “we had two stray nights back in April that were 27 degrees back to back, and that late frost killed the fruit that was on the tree,” said orchard owner John Bruguiere.
Although there are fewer peaches on the trees this year due to mid-April frosts, the season likely will finish strong, and plenty of peaches will be available at local farm markets and orchards, said Greg Peck, an assistant professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech.
“Peach flower buds are more sensitive to cold temperatures than apple, pear or cherry buds,” Peck said in an email. “While no single event caused catastrophic losses, we lost flower buds each time the temperature got close to zero Fahrenheit and then some more during the April frosts.”
Dickie Brothers is selling peaches at the Nelson Farmers Market, but the haul is significantly less than usual. Bruguiere said Dickie probably will pick less than 10 percent of its anticipated crop. Normally that’s about 800 bushels of peaches. “If we pick 20 bushels, I’d be very surprised,” Bruguiere said.
The loss has prompted the orchard to delay the opening of its on-site retail business until mid-July or early August, when early-season apples are expected to be ready for harvest.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
