ALTO PASS, Ill. — Fruit growers Wayne “Ren” Sirles in southern Illinois and Bill Forgie in central Tennessee are counting their blessings these days.

 

With a warmer-than-usual end to the winter season earlier this year throughout the Midwest and Southeast, peach growers like Sirles and Forgie feared that early blooms on their trees were at risk if weather conditions turned winter-like.

And sure enough, during the third week of March, temperatures throughout the region dipped into the lower 20s for several evenings – the kind of cold snap that leads to the decimation of early blooming trees. It’s what happened to Forgie’s crop in 2015.

This year, however, was a slightly different story for Forgie and Sirles. While an estimated 85 percent of the peach crops in Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama were wiped out because of Mother Nature’s ill-timed cold touch, orchards in southern Illinois were only slightly affected, Sirles said.

And in Tennessee, two 500-gallon propane operated heaters helped Forgie’s Fruit Farm survive the icy onslaught. “We had a miracle this season, that’s for sure. There’s no other way to put it,” said Forgie, who was overseeing a rush of people looking to pick their own peaches since the farm opened on June 26.

“When we lost most of the crop in 2015, I started doing some research on companies that produce heaters, and we eventually took the plunge and bought two of them from a company in Belgium. They saved the entire crop this year for us.”

“We’re a small orchard (11 acres worth of peach trees), so it was a significant investment for us, but it has paid off for us,” he continued. Forgie spent about $20,000 on the two heaters, a small investment compared to the business his peaches generate.

He expects to sell close to 100,000 pounds of peaches this season; through the first three days since his farm was open to the public, he estimated he has sold about 16,000 pounds. “And they’re good, too, because we did get plenty of rain this spring. They’re good-sized, and they’re juicy,” Forgie said.

Located about 270 miles northwest of Forgie’s farm is Rendleman Orchards, near Alto Pass in southern Illinois. When the cold snap hit Sirles’ orchard, some early variety trees had bloomed, but most made it through the conditions all right, he said.

“We were blessed here because it could have been worse, that’s for sure. We just didn’t get a long cold spell here,” said Sirles, whose family operation includes about 250 acres of peach and apple trees.

While the fruit trees made it through the spell without heaters, he said the orchard’s covering of about five acres of strawberries helped save that crop.

The orchard’s Farm Market opened to the public this season last Saturday, and Sirles said all of the peach varieties harvested so far look tasty. “I don’t think fans of peaches will be disappointed,” he noted.