THE PEACH INDUSTRY IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Peach production is an important segment of the South Carolina economy. Today it is accepted that the peach originated in China - now they are grown throughout the temperate regions of the world. In the United States, California, South Carolina, Georgia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are the leading peach producing states. Commercial peach production in South Carolina is divided into three regions - the Upper State, the Ridge and the Coastal Plains. The Upper State produces 46.2% of the state's crop and the Ridge 42.8% with the rest of the production in the Coastal Plains area (11%). Spartanburg County is the leading county in the state. Seventy percent of the upper state trees are in Spartanburg County.

South Carolina growers have been increasing their plantings in the last few years. From 1978 to 1982 we've increased about 900,000 trees considering all ages. I feel this increase is very important to producers east of the Rockies. We have experienced a new increase of 200,000 trees per year. Most of our trees are 4–13 years of age and all haven't come into production. We have at least a million trees in the state that never have produced a peach. There are not many trees in the 19–24 years of age range and if we lost all of them the tree numbers would not be significantly reduced. It's those 1–8 year old trees that concern South Carolina most, and I think should concern other states as well.

Blake is the leading variety with about 9.2% of the total number of trees of all ages followed by Redglobe with 8.1%, Redhaven was third with 7.4% and Coronet with 5.9%. Junegold is in 5th with Loring close behind in 6th place. Jefferson, Harvester, Dixired and Rio Oso Gem fill out the top ten varieties in the state.

The leading varieties of the young trees 3 years of age and younger ranked in descending order are: Blake, Redglobe, Redhaven, Babygold, Jefferson, Coronet, Harvester, Loring, Junegold and Dixired. We are going to continue for the next few years with Blake being the leading variety followed by Redglobe, Redhaven, Coronet, Loring or Junegold.

In the last two years, South Carolina has had a significant reduction in tree plantings. I don't know whether this is a trend for the future. We've gone through two very dry years followed by two severe freezes and this has been our driest season ever.

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