Georgia peaches may be in short supply this year, local farmer says

HALL COUNTY, Ga. — It’s peach harvest time across the Peach State, but the crop isn’t as big as in years past.

At Jaemor Farms in Hall County, owner Drew Echols figures he’s lost about half of his crop this year.

He grows about 150 acres of peach orchards, which suffered from a freeze in March.

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The peaches his market has for sale now came from middle Georgia, where the harvest season arrives earlier.

Several days of freezing weather in March followed a warm streak in February.

“I always tell people it’s supposed to be cold in March – March is wintertime,” he said. “It’s just not supposed to be warm in February.”

The early warmth had the trees bursting with buds and blossoms, only to get a cold shock in March.

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Peach trees do need cold weather – roughly 800 “chill hours” before bearing fruit.

“When these trees get all their chill hours, and they get just one or two days of warm weather in February, they want to go,” Echols said.

He says he has seen worse years, and recently.

In 2021, he lost about 90 percent of his crop. But Echols said outside that year, this season is the roughest he’s experienced since 2007. “We know it’s a high-risk situation, but it’s also a high-reward situation, and we enjoy what we did,” he said.

Peach season runs from late May through Labor Day. The still-green peaches in Jaemor’s orchards will be ready for picking in about a month, then they’ll be for sale at the market.

“Live to farm another day,” Echols said.

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