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Flamm Orchards Feeling Cautiously Optimistic About Peach Crop

Peach Bud
Flamm Orchards
/
WSIU
Peach Bud

When temperatures dipped into the teens in mid March, area growers grew concerned.

“Well we’ve got some damage in the peaches, but at this point we still have peaches."

Jeff Flamm from Flamm Orchards is a 5th generation farmer who was concerned last week when we had a few days of freezing temperatures.

His peach trees were already in early bloom and that type of weather is devastating to newly spouted flowers.

“The pistol inside the flower actually froze and is dead and that’s where your peach comes from.”

Some varieties of peach trees were better off than others.

“We may have some varieties of that could possibly be a little on the light side.”

It’s still too early to tell the full extent of the damage right now.

Flamm says that it will be a few more weeks before he can stop worrying about the temperatures.

The trees have a heavy bud set from last year and Flamm says they can produce a crop with 15 to 20% of the blooms to pollinate the orchard.

“We can have a pretty significant loss and still have a pretty good crop”

The apple trees usually run a few weeks behind the peaches so they are safe as of now.  

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