By Clint Thompson
The weather was so unpredictable this winter in Florida that one peach producer was shocked he had a crop this year. Not only does Mike Graham have peaches, he has quite a bit.
“It looks really good for me. I’ve had other people tell me they don’t have any, a light crop. But no, we’ve got a huge crop,” Graham said. “Considering the way the weather was this year, we’ve got a lot more than I figured we’d have. We’ve got a lot of peaches, that’s all I can tell you. We thinned them. We got through with the thinning and maybe lightly hit them one more time. We’re still going to pick a lot of peaches.”
Graham owns Graham Farms in Umatilla, Florida just north of Orlando. His surprising reaction is due to the lack of chill hours in the state when the crop needed it the most.
“We didn’t get any chill hours up front like we need. Then in January it turned cold and stayed cold all the way through half of March. By then the trees are already budding out,” Graham said. “So, the chill hours are always November and December chill hours. We didn’t get hardly any. We had 40 to 50 chill hours up to January. I’m surprised we’ve got a peach at all.”
Graham expects to start harvesting in a couple of weeks. He’s targeting the third week of April for his UF Best variety before switching to other varieties the first week of May. Graham expects to make the Memorial Day market this year.
“It depends on the weather. What normally would kill you is the later you go, if we hit our early rainy season then you get hammered with brown rot. You want to try to get through with your peaches by no later than the last week of May,” Graham said.