Rochelle, GA |

Nothing says summertime quite like a big, juicy, sweet watermelon. Thankfully, Georgia has plenty of producers that grow them, pack them, and get them into stores for people to enjoy during the summer months. One operation that’s busy doing just that is Bloodworth Farms, as they’re right in the middle of harvesting – something they’re no doubt excited to see after having to plant later than expected and having to endure a challenging growing season.

“It was really, really wet in the early spring, we were struggling to get field work done. We hold a lot of water here, our dirt’s kind of heavy, so it made tillage and things like it very difficult. We were down to the date, we had a set date of planting somewhere around March the 20th, but the rain didn’t stop. We got them planted. The rain kept coming, kept coming and we battled disease. You can see these fields right here, they look beautiful compared to what they did a month ago, because the disease from the rain was just hard,” says Clayton Bloodworth with Bloodworth Farms.

Thankfully, the harvest season is going much better, as Bloodworth says the rains have slacked off, which allows them to get in and out of their fields with ease.

“It’s been perfect, the busses can travel down the drive roads. They can get up and down. We still have enough soil moisture that has kept the plants going. We had to supplement a little bit with overhead irrigation, but all in all, harvest season has been as good as you can ask for,” says Bloodworth.

However, Bloodworth says another challenge this year has been his overall cost of production continuing to rise, which in the end, gets passed along to the consumer and can end up creating issues with demand.

“I did not realize how far over my initial budget I was and just didn’t really take into consideration the cost of the machinery, the cost of our repairs, the daily inputs. It might not be a big increase, but at the end, when every single one of them has increased a little bit, little bit, little bit, the bottom line is it has greatly increased over the production that we’ve had in the past three or four years, and it’s going to be a continuing problem because this cost is going to have to trickle down to the consumer. And where’s that fine line where that consumer is going to say, ‘hey, I can’t afford to buy this. This is a luxury item. This isn’t a staple’,” says Bloodworth.

Despite those challenges this season though, Bloodworth says the crop has turned out to be worth the headache, as demand for watermelons has remained steady.

“So far, the demand has been good. The price fluctuated dramatically between the Florida market to the Georgia market. I was really expecting the prices to be borderline ‘hey, is it even going to be worth picking?’ But they’ve been decent. We’ve had a lot better, but to be honest with you, we’ve been very fortunate,” says Bloodworth.

By: John Holcomb