Springs Farm reports 40 percent loss of peaches to freeze; strawberries OK

Springs Farm lost nearly half its peach crop to a recent freeze, the farm’s general manager said.

Ron Edwards waited a few days after the March 29 overnight freeze before making an assessment of damage to the Springs Farm orchards. Edwards said he wanted to let rain pass through earlier in the week and then let the warmer temperatures that followed dry things out before a close inspection on April 1.

“We looked stuff over and about 40 percent is gone,” Edwards said.

He oversees the farm’s 50 acres of orchards that have an average of 250 trees per acre.

Early varieties such as Flavor Rich suffered most from the cold snap, Edwards said.

“The later stuff like Big Reds, they seem to have more fruit (on the trees),” he said.

Springs Farm sells peaches and other produce at its store on Springfield Parkway, The New Peach Stand and the old Peach Stand on opposite corners of S.C. 160 West and S.C. 21 Bypass. Edwards said he will seek other regional suppliers to make sure the stores stay stocked through the season.

“We’ll have to network with some of the other Carolinas guys who didn’t suffer a loss at some point in time,” Edwards said.

Although he doesn’t think customers will notice a difference at the stores, Springs Farms will not be able to meet its usual wholesale demand – about 30 percent of the annual yield – Edwards said.

“If anyone suffers, it will be our wholesale customers,” he said.

Insurance won’t cover the farm’s financial losses.

“We have some insurance, but it’s very minimal,” Edwards said. “The reason we have insurance is in case we have a total loss.”

Springs Farm strawberry crop was not harmed by the cold and harvesting should begin by mid-April. It will be on schedule for Fort Mill’s annual S.C. Strawberry Festival the first weekend in May. The festival includes a Pick N’ Flick night when families can pick strawberries at Springs Farm then watch an outdoor movie after dark.

“The strawberries are good,” Edwards said. “We’re going to have a good crop.”

Around the region

Results were mixed from farms in the tri-county region.

Ben Smith at Peach Tree Farm in York was hopeful to get a full crop of most of the 22 varieties grown on the Filbert Highway farm, except for two mid-season peaches, Georgia Bell and Loring, which were hit particularly hard.

“I may have 10 percent of (that) crop,” Smith said.

At Black’s Peaches near York, the peaches seem to have fared worst than originally feared, with up to 75 percent of the crop potentially lost.

“We got burned pretty bad,” said Arthur Black.

Black was hopefully some of the late-blooming varieties, protected from the cold by a tight, compact bulb, would be salvageable. But he said not much can be done to save a crop after the damage from a late-season cold snap has been inflicted.

“It’s pretty much a one-shot deal,” he said.

Sam Hall, co-owner at Bush-n-Vine Farm, also in York, agrees the threat of crop failures are an occupational hazard for farmers.

“We are at the mercy of nature,” he said. “God controls the weather.”

Bush-n-Vine’s crop of strawberries and blueberries seem to have weathered the freeze well, but Hall said it was too difficult to tell with the peaches early this week, especially because many of the peach varieties are at different stages of maturation. It may be weeks before the full extent of the damage is known, he said.

At Cotton Hill Farms in Chester, co-owner Jeb Wilson said the farm may have lost between 30 percent and 40 percent of the peach crop, and some varieties appear to have been totally wiped out.

“Each variety is different,” Wilson said. “First it swells up to the size of a pea, then once it grows up, it reaches full size in June.”

Early blooming varieties came in at the “worst time,” Wilson said, “because once it blooms, it gets killed.”

Herald reporter Bristow Marchant contributed.

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Springs Farm reports 40 percent loss of peaches to freeze; strawberries OK."