News on Georgia, local peach crop anything but peachy

You might have to use canned peaches for that cobbler this summer. Fresh peach ice cream? May not be happening this year with the regularity that it has in past summers.

The peach crop in Georgia and neighboring states has been devastated by the weather, including a warmer than normal winter and a late March freeze.

Nearly 80 percent of the Georgia peach crop was wiped out, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday.

A Chattahoochee Valley grower in East Alabama confirms that the news is not good on that side of the river, as well.

“Our crop was hurt this year by the late frost in March,” said Allie Corcoran, with the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service and co-owner of Backyard Orchards in southern Russell County. “... We will probably have half the crop we were supposed to.”

Backyard Orchards, located on U.S. 431 at the Russell County-Barbour County line, was hit hard last year when half of its 10 acres of peach trees were lost to disease caused by the December 2015 flood, Corcoran said. Backyard Orchards still has more than 500 trees, Corcoran said.

The bad news about Georgia peaches is spreading, Corcoran said.

“We have talked to Georgia growers and they are really hurting,” she said.

Ground zero is about an hour east of Columbus, where many of the state’s peaches are grown.

Robert Dickey is a Musella, Ga., peach grower and he figures he’s lost 75 percent of his crop, he told myajc.com.

“Quality is good. The peaches are pretty,” Dickey told myajc.com. “But we just got trees where instead of 500 peaches on it, they have 50 or 100.”

The peaches that are available will cost more, Corcoran said.

“Prices will be a lot higher,” she said. “... You might be looking at $20 for a basket depending on who you are buying from.”

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 12:53 PM with the headline "News on Georgia, local peach crop anything but peachy."