The weather extremes so far in 2023 have devastated the peach industry in Georgia. More than 90% of this year’s peach crop was destroyed by the combination of late-spring frosts and the summer heat wave.

Berry Good Farms in Tifton has been growing fruits and vegetables for 12 years now. Every summer, the farm sells its Georgia-grown peaches by the crate. But this year was completely different. 

The owners Bob and Pam Welker told WALB they lost all of their peaches.

“Peaches depend on chill hours, and when you have a crop failure, it’s usually because you didn’t have enough cold weather. Just the opposite happened this year. We had warm weather, and its typical warm weather in March, but followed by frost and freeze and that’s what got us,” Bob Welker said.

On average, the state produces around 130 million pounds of peaches annually. Customers told WALB about their devastation by the lack of peaches.

“We missed out on a lot of peach ice cream. Peaches are good, one of the best fruits here. I try to find the big ones that are mushy because those are the sweetest and I like chopping them up and freeze them,” Uziel Gomez, a Berry Good Farms customer, said. 

The peach is the state fruit of Georgia. It’s in the name of dozens of state roads. It’s even on the flip side of the Georgia state quarter.

The loss impacted not only farms but restaurants as well.

“It’s just been very disappointing for everyone but especially for the out-of-state travelers. We get a lot off the interstate, and everyone thinks when they come to Georgia that they should get peaches, and that’s been the most disappointing thing.” Pam Welker said.

Parts of north Georgia has different varieties of peaches available that weren’t in bloom during the freeze, but says those peaches are selling for triple the price for wholesale orders. Although the peaches sank in the state, other crops like berries produced well and that’s what’s been holding the Berry good farms business together.

” This wasn’t a terrible year because the berries all came at one time, this might have been the biggest blue berry crop we’ve had probably one of the biggest black Berry crops we’ve had. We always add new varieties to stay up with the most popular” Mr. Welkers says.

Farmers are preparing for the next harvest with hopes for better weather this season.

Source - https://www.walb.com