So the hay harvest probably will be small, but

So the hay harvest probably will be small, but at least there will be some supply, which is more than can be said for peaches.

Thomas Lee of Washington, who has a 25-acre peach orchard, reported bad news. “I think we’ve lost them all. I don’t see anything.” Lee doesn't think he will salvage even one percent of his orchard. “I’ve never seen a failure of everything before. ”

Lee said he lost about a third of his peaches to “winter kill,” which means they fell prey to a harsh winter. But the big slaughter didn’t take place in winter. Lee recalls the Tuesday night in spring (April 9) when the temperature plummeted below 20 degrees. “I’m sure it was colder in the orchards,” he said. Anyway, that cold night wiped out all his peaches.

, Lee blamed the loss on the first 10 days of April, which “always borrow 10 days from March.” Those first 10 days are always bad days, he said.

Jerry Jenkins of Woodville, who has an 18-acre orchard, estimated he lost 95 percent of his peaches, “but you really can’t tell until June,” he said. In any event, “the peaches are few and far between. Some trees have nothing on them. You can’t find one peach.”

In a walk through his orchard, Jenkins lowered a branch with his hand to show how the weight of peaches would normally affect the branch at this point in the season. Referring to Tuesday night, April 9 when the temperature fell below freezing, Jenkins said “They (the peaches) were killed in five hours that night. When the, wind laid, the temperature dropped."

Jenkins pointed to one tree and remarked, “Those are Red Haven; they’re as hardy as any and they didn’t make it.” Jenkins also grows Sun Haven and Sun High peaches.

Jenkins blamed the loss on a warm December, which he said caused peach buds to bloom earlier than normal. “They just bloomed a Week too early. ”

Despite the loss, Jenkins continues to cultivate his trees by spraying their leaves and mowing the grass beneath them.

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