Recently AgFax.com published an article by UGA scientist Lenny Wells on the current status of peaches and pecans in Georgia. You can read the article here. In the article Wells discusses the chill hours needed by peaches and notes that because of the cold winter the peaches have received plenty of chill hours this year. He also pointed out that for pecans, spring heat units are more important than winter chill hours. If we have a warm spring, the heat units will accumulate quickly and bud-break could be early; if it is a cool spring, bud-break will be delayed. The article also discussed the likely need for extra N this year due to the quick hard freeze last November.
If you want to check the chill hours at your location, you can use www.georgiaweather.net for the University of Georgia stations within Georgia and AgroClimate.org for locations anywhere in the Southeast (under Tools).
