Last year’s southern Illinois peach crop was the pits. Has it rebounded for 2024?

This story was originally published by St. Louis Public Radio., a BND news partner.

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 well-known metro-east grower.

“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%.

This year, Eckert estimates prices dropped about 15% from last year, but they could change as the summer progresses. As a whole, prices dipped because South Carolina and Georgia — two of the biggest peach producers — had big bounce back years after also struggling last year.

With the more normal production at the orchard, consumers will also notice more peaches at local farmers markets and in their grocery stores, Scavuzzo said. Last year, Flamm did not sell wholesale to local grocery stores because he was so short.

Thanks to the warm weather, peaches at both Flamm’s and Eckert’s arrived a few weeks earlier than anticipated. Normally, peach season starts in July, but they came in June.

“Not the earliest we’ve ever picked, but maybe the second-earliest crop we’ve ever picked,” Eckert said. “The peaches are nice and taste great.”

The good news is that the end of the season will largely remain unchanged and should last until the end of August, Flamm said.

“It really just extends our season,” he said. “It seems like when things start early, they don’t necessarily end early. They still end about on time.”