AREA PEACH CROP AMONG BEST; AFTER ANXIOUS SPRING, WEATHER NOW PERFECT

Everything's peachy!

A mild winter and spring, followed by plenty of hot summer days and sun have peach orchard owners smiling these days.

Peach growers had some anxious moments in March.

Temperatures hovered below the freezing mark for a few days in March, dropping to 10 degrees on March 12, before edging up past the 32-degree mark on March 15.

"But since then, conditions have been almost perfect," said Mike Flamm of Flamm's Orchards north of Cobden.

The cold snap came too early to do much damage to the fruit buds, said Flamm. Heavy rains and humid conditions in May settled into some long, hot, clear days.

"The trees are loaded," said Flamm whose family has produced fruit -- especially peaches and apples -- in the Southern Illinois area for more than 120 years.

This is a bumper-crop year for the Eckert Country Store & Farms operation near Belleville, Ill. "This year's crop is a large one," said an Eckert spokesman. "It's been a very good year."

The peach story is the same in Southeast Missouri.

"Everything came in perfect," said Bill Beggs of Pioneer Orchard in Cape Girardeau.

"We've been working with the Redskin variety, and are looking to Cresthavens now."

The peach harvest is a little early, said David Diebold of Diebold Orchards Inc. near Benton.

"We've been picking peaches the past two weeks and could finish up late August," said Diebold.

By then, it will be apple-picking time, he said, adding:

"We have some Redskins left and will be picking Cresthavens this week."

Diebold Orchards Inc. sells a big portion of its peach crop retail but does wholesale some peaches to local outlets.

"We'll probably have a 75 to 85 percent crop this year," said Diebold.

The short cold snap in March didn't hurt the crop too much, but it did take care of the plums and apricots.

"We will have no plums or apricots for sale," said Diebold.

The peach crop in Illinois has been estimated at about 80 percent of normal this year, the best in more than a decade.

"We had a good harvest in 1995, but the 1998 harvest could be the best in 15 years," said Flamm.

The peach harvest started in Southern Illinois three weeks ago and should be completed in mid- to late August.

Illinois is a large peach-producing state, with more than 180,000 trees that is expected to produce up to 20 million pounds of fruit this year, say agriculture analysts.

Missouri growers produce between 8 million and 9 million pounds of peaches a year, with more than 11 million pounds during a peak year of 1991.

The United States is the largest peach-producing nation in the world. Peaches are grown commercially in 30 states, headed by California, which produces about two-thirds of the nation's peaches.