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Georgia’s Pecan Crop Left to Rot

The devastation caused by hurricane Michael was no small blow to Georgia’s agriculture community. Damage to Timber, Cotton, and Pecans cost Georgia farmers more than a billion dollars in lost revenue. But now the excessive rains may finish off what was left of the pecan crop in many areas. Hurricane Michael put a large portion of the pecan crop on the ground too early, however, on some farms in the south Georgia area say they still had salvageable crop. “We’ve had a lot of clean up, but we had good crop left to get” says one south Georgia farmer. She says she has had clean up crews running double shifts to stay ahead of the harvest crew. “We thought we could get a lot more [pecans] harvested, it’s just been so wet”. Even farmers not in the direct path of Hurricane Michael will still lose much of their pecan crop this year due to the excessive rains. “We might get a day or two without rain, but it’s still too wet”. She is referring to how wet the orchard floor is. “We can’t put equipment in there for at least 4 days.” If they were to try to harvest in these conditions they would just make a big mess with the equipment and get most of it stuck in the mud. She says they wanted to get what was left of the pecan crop, with such a shortage of pecans this year she expects pecan prices to be very favorable later in the year. However mother nature is not allowing for that, and at this point the pecan crop has been sitting on the wet orchard floor for too long and is quickly rotting away. Some think the excessive rains may increase the total loss to Georgia even more than the original predictions of 50 million pounds.