by Doug Ohlemeier, PerishableNews.com
Growers are assessing damage from a mid-March freeze which could prevent South Carolina growers from commercially packing peaches this summer. During the overnight hours of March 15, temperatures sunk to 20 degrees and destroyed as much as 90 percent of the state’s peach crop.
Titan Farms, headquartered in Ridge Spring, SC, doesn’t plan to run its commercial packing line. Up to 90 percent of its peaches were damaged. Daryl Johnson, vice president of sales and marketing, reports the grower-shipper may have lost all its crop.
Because of a mild winter, a majority of Titan Farms’ varieties and groves were already in bloom. The buds couldn’t handle the record low temperatures. Before the freeze, Titan Farms was optimistic it would experience a favorable crop and begin packing by May 1, about three weeks earlier than normal, says Johnson.
“What is ironic is if the freezes hadn’t happened for both Georgia and South Carolina, we would probably have had South Carolina peaches in the marketplace before Georgia,” explains Johnson. “Our main goal is to assess the situation, work with our employees and go into a more conservative mode. We are taking care of our people and letting every one of our partners know what happened, because they have to adjust accordingly to what they need to do without our peaches.”
Johnson says he’s hearing Georgia growers lost up to half of their peaches. Georgia typically begins harvesting in mid-May and finishes by late August while South Carolina, which is the largest East Coast fresh producing state, generally begins in late May and early June and harvests through early September.
Martin Eubanks, assistant commissioner of agriculture for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture in Columbia, says he’s hearing about similar losses and estimates damage at 85 percent -95 percent. The freeze destroyed the front end of the crop as well as the later season varieties. The drop in the thermometer was among the lowest the state has seen this time of year in history. “At this point in time, it is still to be determined if we will have a packinghouse that opens and actually runs a commercial peach this season,” says Eubanks. “We will have peaches in July and August, but there will not be an overabundance.”
Eubanks estimates growers should take three to four weeks before they know how much fruit they can ship. Titan Farms, which normally ships 2.2 million 25-pound cartons a year, plans to sell field-run fruit locally, says Johnson. The company markets itself as the second largest U.S. peach grower-shipper.