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By LISAG. CURRIE
Rappahannock N«w« Staff Writer „ The days have been warm enough for bees to pollinate. The nights have been cool but not too cold. The rain has been plentiful and adequate.
This year for the first in at least three, Rappahannock County peach orchards owners are looking at a bountiful crop.
“I’ve never seen this many blossoms on a branch,” orchard keeper Leon Hutcheson of Washington said. His orchard, some 200 trees, sits high atop Jenkins Mountain, overlooking Rappahannock County High School and most of the county.
“We are going to have to take off half of this bloom,” he said, his thumb flicking the tiny green peaches from the branch. “But, it’s nice having the choice to remove them,” he said with a smile.
For the past three years, the warm January and February afternoons, often reaching 70 degrees, have forced the young buds to develop prematurely, leaving them susceptible to the cold that followed in March and April.
Snow, ice, high winds and freezing temperatures have destroyed the crop the last few years, leaving orchard keepers with little to no profit and local consumers with empty crates.
“I’ve just never seen it like this,” Mr. Hutcheson said, indicating the 10 small peaches growing in a span of six inches. “If you left all these on the branch, you would end up with peaches the size of marbles,” he explained. Mr. Hutcheson has kept his orchard for 10 years, planted on the slope to ward off settling cold.
“There should be a peach every six or eight inches,” Rappahannock County Extension Agent Tommy Williams said.
“The faster the peaches are thinned, the bigger the final product,” he said, echoing Mr. Hutcheson’s words on one of the most bountiful crops in years.
“It’s a very expensive process” for the orchard keeper, Mr. Williams said of the peach bud removal. “There are no chemicals so it’s all manual.”
He said many peach growers use new toilet bowl brushes, sticks with rubber hoses attached to one end to remove the excess. Or they use their fingers. Removal of the extra blooms allow for the peach to develop without removing an excess of valuable nutrients from the tree.
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