Well, this is the pits. A warm-weather spell in February followed by two brutal cold snaps have led to a historic peach shortage in the Northeast, Modern Farmer reported.
According to the magazine, the 50-degree-Fahrenheit days tricked the stone fruit trees into thinking spring had arrived. “Things like peaches, apricots, they start to come out pretty quick as soon as it gets warm out,” Steven Clarke, of Prospect Hill Orchards in Milton, New York, told Modern Farmer. But then the cold spells in April "froze and damaged nearly every single bud.”
Fruit tree specialists estimate that New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have lost 90 percent or more of the peach crop, while New Jersey — the fourth-largest peach-producing state — lost about 40 percent of its peach crop, Boston.com reported.
Nectarines, apricots, plums and cherries were also affected by the weather.
“We’ve never had anything like this, as long as I can remember,” Rick Lawrence, of Lawrence Farms Orchards, in Newburgh, New York, told Modern Farmer. “I’m 60 years old and I can’t remember anything like this.”
John Rogers, who owns Rogers Orchards in Southington, Connecticut, lost all 30 acres of his peach crop. He said he will likely have to purchase the fruit from the South and California to sell. “Peaches are going to be more expensive,” he told Boston.com. “Growers in the other regions know there’s going to be a shortage. It’s supply and demand.”
