Hurricane season coincides with pecan season.
Severe weather is seldom kind to agriculture. A hard freeze too late in March or April shrinks a peach crop, while excessive temperatures and moisture yield lackluster, fungus-ridden tomatoes. Between mid-August and mid-October, the Atlantic faces peak hurricane season, leaving Georgia’s pecan crop particularly vulnerable.
Georgia is the nation’s top producer of pecans, providing about one third of domestic nuts. The majority of Georgia’s pecans are grown in the state’s southern half, a frequent path for Gulf Coast hurricanes. Tree crops are already at risk in a severe storm. Not only does the size and potential damage dwarf vine and legume crops, but trees also require more time for regrowth. Pecan trees generally grow between 70 and 100 feet tall and don’t bear fruit until the age of seven.
Hurricanes cause short- and long-term effects on pecan farms. Even if strong winds don’t topple trees, such winds can still tear limbs and remove pecans, reducing that year’s harvest and worsening quality.
“The weight the tree is carrying causes greater limb breakage [and] blows fruit off,” said Buck Paulk, owner of Shiloh Pecan Farm Nursery in Ray City, GA, located about 15 miles north of Valdosta. “[The fruit] winds up spoiling on the ground because it wasn’t in a place of maturity where it could sustain itself.”
Pecan farmers have to replant fallen trees and wait for them to reach their fruit-producing age, about seven years.
In 2023, Hurricane Idalia carved a path through the Southeast, causing $1.2 billion in losses for Georgia pecan farmers. But if Idalia was a blow, Hurricane Helene in 2024 created a double-whammy of storms farmers previously regarded as once in a generation. East and south Georgia were particularly hard hit by Helene, enduring what’s called the “dirty side” of the storm.
According to Lenny Wells, professor of horticulture and pecan extension specialist at the University of Georgia’s satellite campus in Tifton, Georgia’s pecan industry specifically experienced a total loss of nearly $580 million. More than 48,000 acres were affected, and more than 397,000 trees were lost, costing more than $118 million in direct tree loss and more than $417 million in future income loss. Helene also wiped more than 36 million pounds of the 2024 pecan crop, equating to a loss of nearly $62 million.
Paulk harvested pecans days before Helene swept through Georgia. Ordinarily he would have waited longer. In Georgia, pecan harvest season can start at the tail end of September and last through December, sometimes into January. The approaching storm left him little choice.
In three days prior to the storm, Paulk was able to harvest 125 out of 175 acres of the early-season pecan crop, a small percentage of the farm. It was the best he could do.
Earlier in the season, Paulk produced an estimate for crop yield and return, all the way through to the shelling plant.
“I was only [at] 40 percent of what I estimated, so you can say 60 percent of last year’s crop was lost. [With] the remaining 40 percent, there’s another loss there because the quality [we] did retain [after Helene] is much less because it’s battered,” Paulk explained.
Paulk lost 22 percent of his pecan trees during Helene. As a pecan tree breeder, Paulk was able to replace [some of] his own trees and get reset within the year.
“It’s good to be in the nursery business because you have access to trees to go replanting, but most of [those trees] are contracted for other farms. You’d rather be selling trees [than] resetting them,” he said, adding that storms like Helene often alter the surrounding landscape.
Helene encountered few barriers to cause friction and slow it down as the wind and rain churned over the flat terrain of southeast Georgia, Wells said. Part of Wells’ job as pecan extension specialist is problem-solving for Georgia farmers. During hurricane season, that means visiting different orchards and assessing damage to try and get a gauge over the entire state.
The first few days after a storm like Idalia or Helene are absolutely devastating for pecan farmers when they first go out and assess the damage, Wells said.
“When you’re out there in it, there’s just trees laying everywhere,” he said. “A lot of times there’ll be so many trees on the ground [that are] blocking the path through the orchard that you really can’t even get through the orchard without getting some kind of equipment. It’s extremely demoralizing because farmers go out there and they see their livelihood laying on the ground.”
Hurricane Helene created $5.5 billion in agricultural and timber losses. According to a survey by Weathered But Strong, the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s hurricane relief foundation, hurricane-force winds across southern and eastern Georgia caused the most destruction. Rain and wind and storm surge toppled branches. Without power, farms couldn’t navigate debris — or start cleanup — for days or even weeks.
Paulk likened the cleanup process to a series of gut punches. In order to access salvageable crops, farmers have to remove fallen trees with logging equipment. Trees that can be chipped are sawed down, but those that can’t have to be repurposed as fuel and eventually burned. “You’re ruining even more things, tearing up your irrigation infrastructure,” Paulk said. That initial stage of cleanup can take up to six weeks, lasting into prime pecan harvesting season.
Wells recalls one pecan grower who lost “an enormous amount of trees” and spent about three months cleaning up. No matter a farm’s acreage, he said, tree loss isn’t easy for anyone. That struggle binds Georgia’s pecan farmers together.
“The pecan industry in our state [is] a very tight-knit community. I know several growers who volunteer their time, equipment, labor to help those in other parts of the state,” Wells said.
These farmers may also qualify for financial help from organizations such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS EQIP) cost-share program for conservation practices or the Farm Service Agency (FSA) for agricultural loans.
Meg Darnell has been running Georgia Organics’ emergency Farmer Fund since its founding in 2017. She’s aided farmers suffering losses from severe weather events and, for a few years, the COVID-19 pandemic. However, more than 50 percent of Georgia Organics’ staff was cut in July, and government agencies, including FEMA, are pulling back or reprioritizing funds.
Related Story: Georgia farmers set to receive $531M in federal disaster aid, though no details yet on how to apply
“Anytime there’s a weather event, we will respond by launching a fundraising campaign because people [may know] their neighbors or themselves have been through the storm.” she said. “We gave out a lot of money during Helene.”
The Farmer Fund has given out $95,000 to Georgia farmers affected by Helene in late 2024 and in 2025. These funds cover crop loss and infrastructure damage, including irrigation freezing and burst pipes during Winter Storm Elliot in 2022. Georgia Organics has different financial caps — some based on revenue, for example, or a uniform infrastructure cap — as well as a grant from the USDA’s Risk Management Agency.
“There’s obviously FEMA and things like that for natural disasters, but this will be more specific to farms,” Darnell said. “We’ve had a lot of people tell us the money saved their farm.”
Darnell adds that traditional crop insurance, which is subsidized by tax dollars, is more for large-scale commodity farmers (Think monocrops like corn, soy, and cotton). It leaves smaller, family-run farms with few options for insurance and risk management benefits. Protection policies, like right-sized insurance policies at a better price point, would make a larger impact on small- and medium-sized farms than cobbling together money from band-aid funds.
Darnell plans to use grant money to build a disaster preparedness tool kit to help farmers know who to call, where to go, what to do in the event of a storm. She suggests taking pictures of everything and advises not touching anything until a farmer checks in with the Farm Service Agency office, or with organizations able to provide relief funding.
“There’s certain things that can be done [in farm] management long-term and we’ve made [or changed] recommendations to [farmers] to address some of these issues and minimize the risk as much as we can,” Wells said of other options farmers should consider.
Paulk diversified his crops this year. He planted peaches, which yield fruit before hurricane season. There are also some pecan tree varieties, such as the Pawnee, which harvest at the end of September rather than in October or November.
The UGA Pecan Extension also recommends hedge pruning trees to reduce size.
With less tree volume, the root system can support the tree a little better. The pecan extension’s research can also help farmers brace for future storms. Wells worked with landscape ecologist Dr. Jeffery Cannon to determine risk factors in both trees and farms and found that trees between the ages of eight and 20 tend to get blown down the easiest. However, sandier-soil farms fare better than those with clay soil, the most common soil type in the state.
“The healthier your soil is and the more conservation practices you have, [the more] your soil is gonna be able to take on water and dissipate it instead of just it pooling and ruining everything,” Darnell said. “You’ll see a big difference between damage defending on the health of the farm.”
A year after Helene swept through the state, Georgia’s pecan farmers are still recovering. Will Easterlin, a fourth-generation general manager of Easterlin Pecan Company in Montezuma, said that Georgia pecan farmers heavily depend on sales made during the holiday buying season in November and December.
“Buying during the season and looking for Georgia pecans is really where you’re gonna help out the most,” Easterlin said. That money goes even farther when consumers opt to purchase pecans with a Georgia Grown label.
Paulk agrees that consumer purchasing-power is key for Georgia’s pecan farmers.
“It matters a lot whether people buy and eat pecans,” Paulk said. “If I don’t have customers, then that’s as bad as, if not, worse than hurricanes.”
