Pioneer Orchard has been in the Beggs family for more than 90 years

Editor's note: This story is the second in a series about local farms and farmers.

Fuzzy buds the size of thumbnails cling to the limbs of peach trees lined in rows at the Beggs' Pioneer Orchard off Silver Springs Road in Cape Girardeau. Starting next week, many of those buds will be picked in a process called thinning, leaving an average of 6 inches between each bud and allowing better size and flavor in the growing fruit, Bill and Diana Beggs said.

And that flavor is what keeps many of their customers returning to the orchard.

Bill Beggs' great-grandfather, Theodore Ochs, began Pioneer Orchard in 1923. Ochs had money to invest and bought the property at $50 an acre, planting apple and peach trees. The orchard was a business and hobby for him. Bill and Diana took over the family business in 1996, and they continue to grow peaches, as well as row crops, nectarines, plums and sweet corn on the 130-acre property.

Bill has continued with most of the varieties of crops his father and grandfather raised, but also has added a few.

Young peaches hang from a branch at Pioneer Orchard Co. on Wednesday in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

Different varieties of the fruits are staggered so the Beggs aren't picking the whole orchard at the same time, Bill said. It's a way to make sure their open-air market, which will operate this year from mid-June through August on the property, is open every day during that time.

"A lot of times, new is not the best," he said of switching up varieties of peaches. "We knew what kind of peach we were raising, the different varieties, and so I just stayed with it."

However, changes to the original business plan had to be made to provide a steady income year-round. Six to seven weeks of income coming from the orchard doesn't cut it.

The couple operates an excavating business, a mobile-home park that was added by Bill's father and grandfather, and Diana and Bill recently added manufactured-home sales to their business.

"To hold you out for the rest of the year, you've got to do other things," Diana Beggs said. With the expenses of chemicals, fuel and equipment, "it's just devastating to stay in the farming business," Bill Beggs added.

There now are 3.2 million farmers operating 2.1 million farms across the United States, according to the 2012 Census of Agriculture released last week. Census data are released every five years.

Three quarters of all farms had sales of less than $50,000 in 2012, producing only 3 percent of the total value of farm products sold, according to the data. Farms with sales of more than $1 million -- 4 percent of all farms -- produced 66 percent of the total value of farm products sold.

What keeps the Beggs growing what they grow, where they grow it, is their love for what they do and the people they are able to interact with because of the orchard.

"You've got to love what you do to succeed. Money can't really be a factor," Bill Beggs said. "It's what we are."

The business gets Bill up by 4 a.m. every day, seven days a week, after about four hours of sleep. He also frequents the gym because of the necessity to stay in shape. Even so, Bill considers his work a "mini-vacation."

"When I get down there with those trees, it's just like a getaway," he said. "There's so many good memories from over the years ... and when you're out there, you reminisce."

While most family farm operations last about three generations, Bill said, Pioneer Orchard is on its fourth. The family business is to be passed down to Diana and Bill's children, and the orchard will see its 100th birthday in 2023.

It is apparent who runs the show at Pioneer Orchard, and it happens to be the couple's favorite part about the business -- the customers.

What Bill's parents used to operate as a wholesale business, selling produce to grocery stores and his uncle's market in Jackson, now is sold only at the orchard.

"We don't sell anything anywhere else but here," Diana Beggs said.

According to the Census of Agriculture data, 144,530 farm operators reported selling products directly to consumers, and those sales totaled more than $1.3 billion, an increase of 8.1 percent from 2007.

The switch has made the peach-selling business more personal for the Beggses.

"We've developed so many neat friends over the years that come and buy the fruit," Bill Beggs said. "I just love people. I think that's the best part. And hearing good comments about our fruit, how they enjoy it."

"I think the main reason people come back is they know who they're going to see here," Diana said. "They know us, and we know them, you know what I mean?"

Handing a customer a complimentary peach or two, taking special orders and making sure the boxes of peaches are "good and full" keep people coming back.

"They're the boss," Bill said. "If they want to come in and buy one peach, they're welcome to."

And the peaches they grow are so popular, the Beggs special package them to be shipped to places such as Alaska and Virginia.

The secret behind the juicy sweet peaches many can't resist is the way they are picked, Bill Beggs said. The peaches are picked fresh daily, and they are gauged on what will last throughout the day. If the market runs out, Bill will go out to the orchard and pick more.

Leaving them on the limb until the last minute works in favor of the flavor, and on hot summer days, the peaches come in warm from hanging on the trees.

"Picking them when they're ripe like that, that's what people really want," he said.

Proof of time marching on can be seen across Silver Springs Road, where Cape Girardeau Central High School now stands, home to more than a thousand students. Across Mount Auburn Road, the Southeast Cancer Center, a modern, glass-encased development, shows a busy parking lot since opening in 2011.

And in the middle of the two developments are rolling hills with rows of peach and nectarine trees, surrounded by a field of wheat.

Though time has forced some changes to their business plan over the years, "as long as you have the land and the property, you can adapt the property," Bill Beggs said.

And "as long as the people come, we'll be here," Diana Beggs said.

ashedd@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent address:

2851 Pioneer Drive, Cape Girardeau, Missouri