South Carolina Peach Council hears good crop report
South Carolina Peach Council hears good crop report
MYRTLE BEACH, SC — South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers told about 100 members and guests of the South Carolina Peach Council gathered here April 18 that “this year’s South Carolina peach crop looks great in mid-April” and the group then proceeded to raise $130,600 in a live auction for the council’s work in research and promotion in the year ahead.
Matt Forrest, 2015 president of the South Carolina Peach Council, presents a plaque to 2014 president Lynne Chappell of Chappell Farms, a fifth-generation peach grower, in appreciation for her outstanding leadership to the council. Move photos here.
“We’re excited to get started with the peach-growing season,” council President Matt Forrest, vice president of Dixie Belle Peaches in Ward, SC, told the crowd. He said the harvest for commercial shipment is expected to begin in early May, with a normal supply though mid-September. An “almost perfectly cold winter has provided the buds on the trees their needed chilling requirements,” he observed.
“Suffering only mild damage from a light freeze in March, we estimate our crop statewide at 80 percent, with no delay in start time and no breaks in production,” Forrest told the council members and guests. “We generally start harvesting three or four days behind Georgia, but our season continues for another two to three weeks after the Georgia peach season ends. “We grow two to two-and-a-half times as many peaches in South Carolina as Georgia grows,” Forrest said.
South Carolina peaches carry the slogan, “The Tastier Peach,” Forrest noted. Martin Eubanks, assistant commissioner of agriculture, warned those assembled that when eating a South Carolina peach with its natural juices, “You will need two napkins.”
Though the annual golf tournament got rained out, the live auction was a hit with the crowd. It offered donated items like paintings and hand-blown glass sculptures peaches, peach moonshine, a hand-crafted peach wood turkey call, and 2,800 boxes of peaches (in-season delivery) from eight growers.
