I noticed when I drove home from work in Watkinsville GA today (just outside Athens) that the peach orchard on the university farm is in bloom (and no, this picture is not from Watkinsville-we’re a lot flatter).  This is about a month earlier than usual, which is consistent with observations I’ve previously mentioned from the National Phenology Network showing us well ahead of normal conditions.  A lot of the peaches did not get enough chill hours this winter to produce a full crop, and although the peach producers have some tricks they can use to improve fruit set, the yields this year, like last year, are likely to be below average.  (I see that I talked about peach blossoms in this blog in late March 2016 and in early April 2015, just to show you how early this is.)

I grew up in western Michigan in the fruit belt along the short of Lake Michigan, so I am interested in how their fruit production compares to us down in the Southeast.  You might be interested in this article from Mike Longstroth of Michigan State University as published in the Fruit Growers News discussing the impacts of recent warm weather on fruit production there.  You can read it at https://fruitgrowersnews.com/news/worried-february-warmup-fruit-crops/.

Source: Karen Blaha, Commons Wikimedia