Despite freeze concerns, Western Slope farmers say peach crop is on track in 2021 | VailDaily.com
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Despite freeze concerns, Western Slope farmers say peach crop is on track in 2021

After April freeze decimated 2020 crop of Palisade peaches, farmers saying this season looks much better

Colorado Colorado |

Joe Rubino
The Denver Post
Jerry Galemore hand picks a basket of sweet Red Globe peaches at Papa Brown's Orchards on August 18, 2016 in Palisade, Colorado. Palisade is enjoying the biggest bumper crop of peaches in about 40 years.
Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post

At roughly this time last year, the state was seeking federal disaster support after a 19-degree April freeze on the Western Slope decimated Colorado’s peach crop.

A National Weather Service forecast calling for up to seven inches of snow and low temperatures in the teens across northeast and north-central Colorado overnight Monday into Tuesday has stirred up some bad memories.

But farmers and experts say there is no reason for concern about a repeat of the disastrous 2020 season. At least not unless things take a drastic and unexpected turn out west.

“The good news is that there is no news,” Tom Lipetzky, director of the Colorado Department of Agriculture’s markets division, said Monday when asked if another cold spring in the Rocky Mountains was having an impact on crop projections again.

Read more via The Denver Post.

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