Jim Markley’s 1,300 peach trees are usually so laden with fruit this time of year his workers take a Wiffle bat to the branches to thin out the crop, leaving thousands of tiny unripe peaches littering the ground.
This year, driving a golf cart through the rows of trees, he finds a single pale yellow fruit.
“This is the first time ever we’ve lost the entire crop,” said Markley, the owner of CJ Orchards in Rutledge, Georgia, about an hour east of downtown Atlanta.
Peach farmers across Middle Georgia say their crop has been all but wiped out by an unusually warm winter, which caused fruit development earlier than normal, followed by a brutal cold snap in March that killed the nascent buds.
Apart from a few days of freezing temperatures, January through March was the hottest such period on record in Georgia, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Temperatures statewide averaged 56.4 degrees, more than 6 degrees warmer than the 20th century norm.
Georgia is no longer the country’s top peach-producer, having been surpassed long ago by California. But Georgia’s Peach State label remains, even as a warming climate has made growing peaches and some other fruit here more difficult.
This year, driving a golf cart through the rows of trees, he finds a single pale yellow fruit.
“This is the first time ever we’ve lost the entire crop,” said Markley, the owner of CJ Orchards in Rutledge, Georgia, about an hour east of downtown Atlanta.
Peach farmers across Middle Georgia say their crop has been all but wiped out by an unusually warm winter, which caused fruit development earlier than normal, followed by a brutal cold snap in March that killed the nascent buds.
Apart from a few days of freezing temperatures, January through March was the hottest such period on record in Georgia, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Temperatures statewide averaged 56.4 degrees, more than 6 degrees warmer than the 20th century norm.
Georgia is no longer the country’s top peach-producer, having been surpassed long ago by California. But Georgia’s Peach State label remains, even as a warming climate has made growing peaches and some other fruit here more difficult.
Slim pickings: Peach crop wiped out across much of Georgia
An unusually warm winter followed by a brutal cold snap in March have killed much of the crop
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