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Technician Sarah Mayo harvests peaches from one of the 40 research plots at the Musser Fruit Research Center. The peaches are sized and weighed as part of a project to evaluate the commercial viability of an experimental rootstock.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Warning signs
Trespassers who steal fruit may destroy years of careful research. They also run the risk of criminal prosecution and exposure to experimental pesticides and fungicides.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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More than trees
Luke Dallmann (left), assistant farm manager, and Dr. Greg Reighard, co-founder of the research center, are proud of the world-class facility that includes laboratories, storage facilities, tractor sheds and offices where scientists from multiple disciplines can coordinate their work for the benefit of growers and consumers.
Photo by Keith Phillips
Behold the South Carolina peach!
Sun-bronzed, tree-ripened—a juicy bundle of sweet perfection available from roadside stands and farmers markets for those of us lucky enough to call the Palmetto State home. Peaches are also one of the state’s top cash crops, with fruit packed and shipped to grocery stores all along the East Coast and into the Midwest. Georgia may claim to be the “peach state,” but South Carolina produces far more than our neighbors to the west.
But the peaches we know and love don’t just grow on trees. They need a lot of help to survive diseases, fungal infections, insects, poor soils and inclement weather. And that’s where Clemson University’s 240-acre Musser Fruit Research Center steps in.
“What we do is research, to make a better peach and explore ways to grow peaches economically so that we can provide this fruit to the nation and North America,” says Gregory L. Reighard, professor emeritus and visiting professor of horticulture.
Reighard, a member of Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, was instrumental in building the farm, starting in the early 1990s, turning it into a world-class research campus complete with laboratories, storage coolers, offices and even a caretaker’s house. More important: the farm grew into a place where scientists from multiple academic disciplines can work together to benefit peach growers and consumers.
“I don’t want to brag on it, but we’ve had people from other countries come look, and we definitely are the premier peach research team and farm in the country and probably all of North America and South America, too,” he says.
To a casual observer, the property on the shores of Lake Hartwell may look like any other peach grove, but for farm manager Jeff Hopkins and his staff, it’s more like 40 different groves in one location. Each research project has dedicated plots, and each plot has unique needs for cultivation, fertilization, spraying and monitoring.
“We have disciplines such as horticulture, genetics, genomics, virology, pathology, plant physiology, entomology, nematology and soil science. We have lots of plots with different projects going on,” Hopkins says. “Basically, if there’s a way to look at peaches or any part of a peach tree … we have a research project on it.”
Juggling those tasks falls to five full-time employees, including Luke Dallmann, operations specialist and assistant farm manager.
“Every orchard is going to get something different,” Dallmann says. “Before we do anything like a spray, there are a lot of checks and balances because that could jeopardize research. We’ve got to be really organized.”
Mistakes can be costly, Hopkins says. “It doesn’t take a huge mistake to screw up a year’s worth of research. We spend a lot of time making sure we do it right before we do it. Fortunately, we have an amazing staff.”
One of the center’s challenges: Google erroneously lists the farm as a “u-pick” operation, so in harvest season, employees have to turn away curious visitors. And occasionally, they have to run off trespassers who hop the fence in pursuit of peaches—a crime they commit at their own peril if they ignore the warning signs posted along the fence line and consume fruit treated with experimental pesticides, fungicides and other treatments, Hopkins says.
“Thievery is a very real problem for us. People are crazy about fruit. They love fresh peaches. I can understand that, but the problem is they come and show their crazy to me,” Hopkins says of trespassers who steal fruit from the farm’s trees. “In fact, what you’ve done is you’ve ruined the experiment, maybe a decade’s worth of work, just by you greasing your chin.”
While the farm also hosts research projects on other fruits and nut trees, peaches are the clear priority. Growing peaches and managing multiple research projects is a labor-intensive and year-round process.
“Our focus is on peaches, and then when we get done with peaches, we do some more peach work. And when we get done with that, more peach work, and then after that, eventually some apples, blueberries, blackberries and nut trees,” Hopkins says. “We’re banging on all cylinders here. We have a lot of work happening, a lot of good projects, a lot of good results.”
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Get More
For more information on the farm and the research underway, contact farm manager Jeff Hopkins at hopkin4@clemson.edu or (864) 882-0028.