Peach trees in dire need of cold weather

No one is as happy to see colder temperatures in this weekend's forecast as peach growers.

Peach trees are lagging far behind on chill hours so far this year. During the dormant period, the trees need 800 to 1,000 hours of temperatures below 45 degrees for maximum production of most varieties.

With mid-February the cutoff date for getting those hours, so far this year only about 170 chill hours have registered, said Jeff Cook, county extension agent in Peach and Taylor counties.

For the past couple of years the midstate's chill hours had added up to about 500 at this point, but those were especially cold winters. About 300 is closer to the average for this time of year, Cook said.

"It definitely has us talking about it and thinking about it," he said. "It's definitely a concern."

The forecast has temperatures dropping just in the nick of time.

Beginning this weekend, several days in a row are forecast to have lows in the 30s with highs in the 50s, so that should rack up a lot of chill hours. Had the cold weather taken much longer to get here, Cook said, peach growers would have been in trouble.

Any significant warm spells over the next six weeks could still cause a problem.

Growers are especially on edge this year because weather issues have impacted the peach crop for the past three years. The previous two years saw significant losses due to late freezes that killed budding peaches, and three years ago low chill hours hurt the crop.

The late freeze last year reduced the crop by at least 40 percent, Cook said.

Also, some peach trees are likely to die as a result of the rainy December. Peach trees in low areas that do not drain well were likely in soggy conditions for too long, which can kill the trees. But Cook said most of the trees are on well-drained land, so he doesn't think that would be a significant loss.

But he noted that if homeowners have fruit trees in low-lying areas, they should not be surprised if those trees do not bloom in the spring.

To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.

This story was originally published December 31, 2015 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Peach trees in dire need of cold weather ."