In spite of last year’s frost in mid-March, a lot of damage to the peach harvest in Georgia this year did not come from frost but from a lack of chill hours, since most locations in the peach areas of Georgia got much less than they really need for the trees to put out a good flush of blossoms. By comparison, peaches in South Carolina had experienced more chill hours and put out plenty of flowers, which then became susceptible to the frost that ensued. That frost caused enormous devastation in the peach crop there. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an article that discusses how peach farmers in Georgia view the last two years of low chill hours and how that might affect their future peach production here.
