ALBANY - Frank Richter rides through his 600-acre pecan orchard on a four-wheeler, stopping often to snatch nuts from the ground and crack them open. What he finds inside the shells is often heartbreaking: kernels that are spongy, shriveled or blackened by plant disease. <br>
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Richter has worked all year to produce a quality crop of pecans. He sprayed expensive chemicals to control funguses. He turned on his irrigation system to provide water during the dry summer months. <br>
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But with the harvest season under way, he and other growers across the Southeast are faced with a problem they can't control: two months of unusually heavy rain. <br>
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After months of drought, growers welcomed the rain in September, but now it's driving them, well, nuts. <br>
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Richter says he can't get in the orchard because of the amount of rain and the nuts are out there rotting. <br>
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There were pools of water in low areas around his orchard and the ground was still squishy from the latest downpour. He had to send his workers home because they couldn't harvest. The heavy equipment used to shake the trees and scoop up the nuts can't make it through the mud. If the pecans aren't picked at the right time, they start to shrivel. <br>
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September and October are usually among Georgia's driest months and that typically provides ideal conditions for harvesting the state's $100 million dollars pecan crop. <br>
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This fall is different, and the combination of excessive moisture and warm weather is beginning to show up in the Agriculture Department's crop reports. <br>
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Seventy-eight percent of Georgia's crop is rated fair to very poor. <br>
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Georgia produced 110 million pounds last year and the forecast is for 50 million pounds this year.
