FREEZE HURTS PEACHES

BENTON -- The summer peach-picking and canning season is getting off to a slow start this year because a hard freeze in March destroyed almost all of the early variety peaches in many area orchards.

But later varieties of peaches were not affected by the freeze, and growers said that although there may not be as many peaches as there were last year, this year's peaches will be bigger and the quality better.

David Diebold of Diebold's Orchards at Kelso and Benton said the freeze just about wiped out this year's crop of red haven peaches. He said, "I'll probably have about 5 percent of a crop of red havens this year."

Diebold said he'll start picking the later varieties of peaches this week.

"That's about a week later than normal, but peaches have an internal biological clock," said Diebold. "They need a certain number of days of warm temperatures to mature and ripen. We may not have as many peaches as we had last year, but the size will be bigger and the quality excellent."

Bill Beggs, who owns and operates Pioneer Peach Orchard on South Silver Springs Road in west Cape Girardeau, said: "Until the March freeze, we were looking at an excellent crop in all of our peach varieties. The March freeze pretty well wiped out most of our red havens, but the other varieties came through okay."

Because of the loss of the red havens, Beggs said he won't begin picking peaches until later this month. "We've already had a lot of phone calls from longtime customers who wanted to know if the red havens were ready," said Beggs. "I had to put up a sign telling the folks that we will not have red havens this year."

In Southern Illinois, peach orchards on hills and ridges in Union and Jackson counties escaped the brunt of sub-zero temperatures in mid-February and the March freeze.

Larry Flamm of Flamm Orchards at Cobden, Ill., said he started picking red havens last week. Flamm said this year's red haven peach crop is down about 40 percent from normal.

"We should have about 60 percent of a total crop of red havens this summer." said Flamm. He said the later variety of peaches were not affected by the freeze.

A few miles north of Cobden, Jim Hartline of Hartline's Orchards at Alto Pass said his red haven peach trees survived the freeze with exception of trees in the bottoms. "Trees at the bottom of a hill or ridge, where the coldest air drains, do not have anything on them this year," said Hartline.

Hartline said he'll pick red havens for another two weeks. "After that, the later varieties will start coming in, such as loring, redhearts, harmony, cresthavens and the red skins. We'll have peaches through the rest of the summer and into early September."

Flamm said only Jackson and Union counties appear to have escaped the peach wipeout caused by mid-February temperatures that dropped to 20-below in central Illinois and Missouri.

"I know Eckert's in the Belleville area will have peaches this year, but everything north of there was killed by the cold winter," said Flamm. "Most of the peach buds were killed up around the Centralia area and over in southern Indiana."

Chris Doll of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville said Illinois produced 15 million pounds of peaches last year, 3 million pounds less than in 1992 because of a wet spring and late frost. The state is ranked 25th among the country's 35 peach-growing states.

Illinois peach growers aren't the only ones to feel the impact of the freezes. Peach orchards in Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were wiped out.

A spokesman for the American Farm Bureau said the entire peach crop north of the Mason-Dixon Line was wiped out this year by the bitter cold temperatures in February. However, the cold largely missed California, which produces about 75 percent of the nation's total.

Diebold, who sells a lot of his peaches wholesale, said the wholesale price is largely determined each year by the California peach crop.

Peach growers in Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri said retail prices for peaches should be about the same as last year.