CORDELE, Ga. — Agriculture is woven into the fabric of Central Georgia, and those parcels of land turn out all kinds of things. Over the next few weeks, Suzanne Lawler takes you to some farms in Central Georgia for a series called 'Farms from the Heart.'
Judd Baker, who runs this farm and his family, left for Columbus the night before Hurricane Michael came through the city last October. After Irma and living in a pecan orchard, they didn't want to risk anything, but when they came back they couldn't believe what they found on a farm that dates back to the early 1900's.
PHOTOS: J.W. Cannon Farm in Cordele
Hurricane Michael hit October 10, 2018, the peak season for picking pecans, and much like the winds tossed around buildings in Cordele they also left heavy broken limbs ladened with pecans on farms all around the state.
Judd Baker took his licks just like everyone else.
"When we came back the day after October the 11th after the storm, you couldn't step you couldn't take two steps without bumping into a limb of some consequence," he said. "These trees were the biggest challenge because the entire tree is on the ground. It's blocking your rows you're trying to get ready to harvest, and [it's] easy to get discouraged in those moments."
He says the destruction captured on his phone doesn't begin to describe what he and his team faced.
"I'm going to say it was a quarter of our crop 20-25 %, which may not sound like much, but we really felt like we did a really good job of salvaging what fell on the ground we estimate half or our crop was on the ground," Baker said about the cleanup.
They lost 193 trees and some of the stumps still sit like ghosts in the orchard.
