In a peach orchard just off Highway 99 near Traver, hail is piled so thick it looks like snow.
The hail stones are the size of quarters.
One grower, who didn’t want to appear on camera, said the damage to the fruit is catastrophic. Eighty percent of his six million dollar crop has been wiped out.
Leaves on the trees were shredded by the hail. And the hail stones were so big and so powerful, they knocked the fruit off the trees onto the ground.
Peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums... All clustered in this area of kings and northern
“That does a lot of damage with little fruit it will scar them real bad,” said plum grower Nishan Soghomonian.
Soghomonian lost his entire crop of plums.
“I believe it's a total loss right now. We will be happy to salvage some if we can we will try we will try,” Soghomonian said.
With the fruit crop so heavily damaged or demolished, growers expect a heavy impact on summer jobs.
If there is no fruit to harvest there will be no need for workers in the orchards, no fruit to box at the packing sheds.
It’s another staggering blow to the local economy.
Strawberry losses may also be significant.
“Some of the farmers started picking last week. And some of the berries they were picking that are red will start to rot,” said strawberry farm adviser Richard Molinar.
The amount of damage will be tallied over the next several days.
Crop insurance adjusters will head out into the orchards and fields to see just how devastating this storm was for agriculture in the central valley.