Fruit
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Here’s an interesting story about how Maine blueberry producers are using the wild blueberries they harvest to create a new product–blueberry wine. I was interested to read that wild blueberries are not like the commercial blueberries we grow in the Southeast because they are truly wild and are not planted like commercial blueberry plants but…
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While the March frost did tremendous damage to peaches in Georgia, the blueberry crop did much better and is providing a good yield of the luscious crops. According to this story in the Farm Monitor (including video), most blueberries were not far out of dormancy and the temperatures in Southeast Georgia did not get as…
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I often get asked how the number of chill hours in Georgia is changing over time. Here is a great article written by Chunxian Chen from the Southeastern Fruit and Tree Nut Research Lab in Byron, GA, in Growing Produce that answers that question. The author shows that, as expected, the number of chill hours…
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As promised, here are some recent stories about peaches from the Southeast and other production areas of the country. The peach harvest in Georgia was hit very hard this year, but other areas also were badly affected by weather. WABE: Georgia peach crop decimated by bad weather, warming climate Georgia Farm Bureau: Significant decline in…
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This spring we are still seeing the fallout of the warm February followed by two frosts on berry production in the Southeast. There were significant losses in some blueberry areas, although many others are loaded with berries this year. The worst hit were the early-blooming varieties, which were most susceptible to the protracted cold after…
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The latest report on peaches in Georgia is not good. The combination of a warm February followed by two frost events in March led to the loss of most peaches in the center part of the state, where the majority of peaches are grown. Clint Thompson reported in Specialty Crop Industry that only about 5%…
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The multiple atmospheric river events in California this year have caused massive areas of flooding that has damaged trees by suffocating their root systems. This is similar to damage that we have seen here in the Southeast with Hurricanes Ian this past year and Hurricanes Irma and Matthew in previous years. The result of this…