Lack of global warming hits Arkansas: Weather thins harvest by two-thirds

The trouble for Friend Orchard started in November 2008 with a windstorm that created winds strong enough to blow over fruit trees.

The hits kept coming with the January ice storm and cold weather throughout the early months of 2009, and then came the worst weather mishap of them all: a mid-April cold front that brought winds up to 40 miles per hour and below-freezing temperatures.

Friend said the temperature dropped as low as 27 degrees at one point, knocking the seeds out of the peaches and preventing the trees from producing a full yield this summer. Friend said he will begin picking early peaches June 28.
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Many fruit growers in Arkansas have gone broke or died out in the last few years, he said. A widespread freeze in Arkansas and Missouri in 2007 took the last of them out, making Friend one of the biggest fruit-growers left in the state.