by Wesley Harris
This year’s Louisiana Peach Festival will be without its namesake Ruston peaches after a March freeze devastated the crop at Mitcham Farms.
Joe Mitcham, owner of Mitcham Farms, said temperatures dropped to 22 degrees on March 16, destroying nearly all of the farm’s peach crop.
“We may have a peach or two, but not enough to justify the work to process them,” Mitcham said.
By the time the freeze struck, the trees had already flowered and the developing fruit had grown to about the size of a pinky fingernail, he said.
“At that size, they are very tender and can’t take a freeze,” Mitcham said.
Mitcham Farms operates the only commercial peach orchard remaining in Lincoln Parish. Mitcham said a couple of smaller orchards in Ouachita Parish suffered a similar fate.
To help meet demand as the Louisiana Peach Festival approaches, Mitcham received a shipment of peaches from South Carolina Tuesday morning. He said he hopes to bring in enough out-of-state peaches to supply customers during the festival and throughout the summer, depending on price and availability.
“Growers lost their crops all across the South,” Mitcham said. “So they’re very expensive when you can find them.”
A total loss of a season’s peach crop is rare, but not unprecedented in Lincoln Parish, where the peach industry took root in the 1950s. Mitcham said the last time his orchard lost its crop to a freeze was 30 years ago in 1996.
Weather is only one challenge facing the orchard operation, which J. E. “Ed” Mitcham, Sr. and wife Marzee, Joe’s parents, began nearly 80 years ago.
Oak root rot, a fungus in the soil, has been killing peach trees by the hundreds, Mitcham said. An industry once boasting over 1,000 acres of trees in Lincoln Parish is now down to the eight acres Mitcham maintains.
“I lost 280 trees last year to the fungus,” he said. “There’s probably 100 more dead trees in the orchard right now.”
Despite the crop loss, Mitcham said the orchard and farm store will remain open this summer, selling shipped-in peaches when available, along with peach products including jams, jellies, salsa, and other products, as well as their popular soft-serve peach ice cream made on site.
The farm store on Mitcham Orchard Road will operate from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, depending on demand.
