Record rainfall leaving peaches rotting for summer season

YORK COUNTY, S.C. — One year after York County farmers celebrated a bumper crop of peaches, the summer of 2013 has been a literal “wash out.”

Record rainfall is leaving peaches rotting on tree limbs, and on the ground.

It’s possible next season could be even worse.

Channel 9 rode with farmer Arthur Black as he drove through his 50-acre orchard on Tuesday afternoon.

Black said the constant rain going back to early spring, has been bad news

“When we had seven or 8 or 10 inches in a week, we just lost a lot of those peaches,” he said. “The quality was bad, they cracked open, and you have rot and things.”

Black said he’s lost 70 percent of his crop for the year.

Even more shocking is that hundreds of his 6,500 trees are dying.

Constant rainfall kept roots from drying out, leading to fungus and “wet feet.”

Black pointed out several trees with few leaves and drooping limbs.

Others had only about a fourth of the peaches growing on them that they should have.

On Tuesday, still more heavy downpours kept workers indoors making baskets to put the peaches in, instead of in the fields picking them.

However, this water-logged summer has done more than that.

Back in the spring, wet weather kept bees from pollinating some of the crop, so farmers ended up with many unmarketable, golf-ball sized fruit.

“We’ll end up losing a lot of trees next year too,” Black said because some of the damage may not be fully known until the trees bloom again in the spring.

In Fort Mill, Ron Edwards at Springs Farm tells a similar tale.

“I’d say we’re off by about 40 percent,” he said. “All this rain, it has really wreaked havoc on us.”

Edwards said the constant high humidity has led to rot and disease.

Peach orchards need hot days and sunshine to produce a full, juicy fruit.

This summer has brought much cooler days, and little sun.

Arthur Black did raise prices at his store by 50 cents a basket, just to cover some losses.

He hopes the last month of the season will make up for the first three.

One more problem with the rain is that it has caused the healthy peach trees to grow much taller than usual, which means a higher cost to prune them back over the winter to prepare for next season.

“That’s farming,” Black said. “It’s out of our control.”

WSOC