Peaches Are Bountiful Again After Last Year's Poor Crop. But It's More Mixed in One Midwest State

By Will Bauer

Peach production for the larger orchards in deep southern Illinois appears to have bounced back after a rough year last summer — but it was a second down year in a row for a grower east of St. Louis.

“We’re really happy with where our peaches are at right now,” said Austin Flamm, who runs Flamm Orchards near Cobden about 100 miles southeast of St. Louis.

Last year, a cold spell in the winter knocked out all but 10% of their crop. It was the worst loss in 16 seasons for the fruit and vegetable farming family.

However, this year’s weather largely cooperated, and peach production at Flamm’s will stand at 100%. In fact, the crop was so plentiful Flamm and his team had to trim back some trees earlier this year.

“That’s a good problem because it means you have a big, full crop,” Flamm said.

Rendleman Orchards in Alto Pass, just a couple of miles from Flamm’s, had a similar year.

But at Eckert’s Inc. in Belleville, this year’s weather led to another down year — about 50% production, said Chris Eckert, the company’s president.

“The ultimate production is going to be about the same,” Eckert said. “I think the way it happened and the ultimate outcome is a little different.”

Subzero temperatures in mid-January and frost when the trees were blooming in March were the main culprits, he said.

“The concerning thing, from where I sit, is it's not frequently that we have two years in a row with this kind of outcome,” Eckert said. “One: That's hard to endure financially. And two: How much of this is a trend versus kind of circumstance — and are we going to be expecting more of this as time goes by?”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a crop insurance program for peaches, which Eckert said has been needed for the past two years.

“If we were to have two events of this magnitude without crop insurance, that’s kind of a business-ending event because the financial losses would be so catastrophic that you just couldn’t go on,” Eckert said.

Exactly which Illinois orchards felt the loss this peach season depends on geography, said Raghela Scavuzzo, executive director of the Illinois Specialty Growers Association.

“It's always a challenge because you're up against weather, and you never know what's going to happen,” Scavuzzo said.

Smaller orchards in Calhoun County, which sits between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers north of St. Louis, felt the worst of the cold. Some even had a total loss because of a late freeze, she said.

“There’s no guarantee in anything you do, but the farmers do it because they love feeding their community,” Scavuzzo said.

Consumers will notice prices return to normal in southern Illinois, Flamm said. With the short supply last summer, Flamm’s peaches increased about 30% in price, and Eckert’s jumped about 20%.