Tag Archives: late frost

Southwest Georgia Sweet Corn Harvest in Full Swing Despite Frost and Rising Costs

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Brinson, GA |

Southwest Georgia is home to more than eighty percent of the state’s sweet corn production — and right now, those fields are turning gold. Despite a late freeze putting a small dent in early yields, harvest is in full swing and growers say the crop has largely recovered.

“So far, it’s a really good crop. We had a little bit of frost damage at the beginning, but it’s straightened out and is really yielding well,” said Glenn Heard, a Decatur County sweet corn grower. “We have a good climate for sweet corn, and we can ship it all over the country.”

INSECTS DRIVE UP THE COST

While the warm climate and fertile soil make Southwest Georgia ideal for sweet corn production, disease pressure and pests are a constant concern — and one that makes this crop considerably more expensive to produce than field corn.

“By virtue mostly of insects, it is hard. We have to control them the best we can, and we put a lot more inputs into sweet corn because of the insect side compared to field corn,” Heard said.

Those costs have climbed even higher this year, with energy prices jumping nearly twenty percent since February. For growers in South Georgia’s sandy soils, fertilizer is already a significant expense — and the recent price increases have made a tough situation tougher.

“With our sandy land in South Georgia, we use a lot of fertilizer — probably more than anywhere else. So the fertilizer was certainly a shock, and so was the fuel. We’re just trying to muddle through it the best we can,” Heard said.

SOME RELIEF ON LABOR COSTS

Not all the news on the cost front has been bad, however. Recent changes to the H-2A worker visa program have provided some relief on one of the farm’s biggest line items — labor.

“We use a lot of H-2A in harvesting, some in the shed, and now some on our tractors and equipment. We were getting strangled by increases every year in the prevailing wage rate — and that has stopped. That has helped a lot,” Heard said.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Unlike field corn, which primarily goes into livestock feed, sweet corn is grown specifically for people to eat — and that distinction makes timing absolutely critical. The window between peak flavor and spoilage is narrow, and every step of the harvest process has to move quickly.

“We hand harvest — pretty much all the sweet corn in our area is hand harvested. We have to keep it really cool and ship it real soon because it has a certain shelf life. We have to get it to the consumer on time,” Heard said.

For Southwest Georgia’s sweet corn growers, this season is shaping up to be a solid one — even if getting there has required navigating higher costs, pest pressure, and an early frost that tested their resilience before the first ear was ever picked.

By: Damon Jones

Late Frost and Rising Costs Put Pike County Peach Crop on Shorter Season

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Concord, GA |

At Gregg Farms in Pike County, this year’s peach crop is shaping up to look a little different. A warmer-than-normal winter followed by a late frost has left producers adjusting expectations, with a shorter crop translating into a shorter season for customers.

“This year is going to be a little shorter. It got warm earlier, and we had a late frost about a week before Easter — and since all the peaches were bloomed, it got a lot of them,” said Stuart Gregg of Gregg Farms. “We’ll still have a crop this year. It’ll just be a little bit shorter. We might not be open every day or have you-pick every day, but we’ll have something throughout the summer. It just won’t be like other seasons when you have a bumper crop.”

NOT ALL VARIETIES WERE HIT

While the late frost caused significant damage, Gregg says the timing spared some later-blooming varieties, softening what could have been a total loss for certain parts of the orchard.

“I’d say about fifty percent of the peaches got damaged. A lot of the early peaches are at a loss, but the others just kind of got thinned out — so we’re not having to do as much thinning this year due to that frost,” Gregg said. “We’ll just be a little bit later opening, because most of the early peaches were in full bloom while some of the others weren’t all the way bloomed yet.”

COLD WEATHER: A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

According to Gregg, timing is everything when it comes to cold weather and peach trees. The trees require a certain number of chill hours while dormant — but once they bloom, even a brief freeze can quickly turn a promising crop into a challenging season.

“Cold weather is good and bad for peach trees. After the trees go dormant, they have to have over a thousand chill hours — anything below forty degrees,” Gregg explained. “This year was a little different because it was a warmer winter, so we didn’t get our chill hours until way later. Since we were still able to get them, it really didn’t affect the trees. But then it finally got warm, everything started blooming, and we had that late frost. Once the peaches are open, they’re real susceptible to cold — and that’s what happened.”

DROUGHT A CONCERN, BUT NOT YET CRITICAL

Beyond the frost, dry conditions across the state have added another layer of uncertainty for peach growers. For now, Gregg says their trees haven’t been significantly impacted — but he’s watching the forecast closely.

“It’s still early. The peaches are still growing, and there’s still a little bit of water in the ground. We just had a rain, so that’s really helped,” Gregg said. “But if we were to keep getting this drought, it would just be a bad year overall — peaches wouldn’t be that big. We don’t have irrigation on the peaches. We irrigate our flowers and our blueberries, but the peaches are just at the mercy of Mother Nature, like with the frost.”

RISING COSTS ADD TO THE PRESSURE

As if weather challenges weren’t enough, rising input costs are adding financial stress to an already difficult start to the season. Fuel, fertilizer, and other operating expenses have climbed sharply in recent months, squeezing margins for producers like Gregg.

“Everything costs more — fuel, fertilizer, all inputs have just increased the cost of everything,” Gregg said. “It’s going to affect the end consumer just like it affects us. Everything’s more expensive. It takes more to get things done, and you can’t skip out on stuff just because it’s a little more expensive. It’s just making it tougher and making you stretch the dollar a little bit further, trying to get everything ready for everyone to come out.”

Despite the challenges, Gregg Farms is pressing forward — and Georgia peach fans can still look forward to a season, even if it looks a little different than years past.

By: John Holcomb