World's Heaviest Peach

It's official. The world’s heaviest peach, fittingly, was harvested in Peach County in July 2018 adding to the story that is Peach County. Pearson Farm in Fort Valley grew the 1.8-pound peach, surpassing the 1.75-pound fruit recorded by Guinness World Records.

“Some of our crew leaders in the field are always looking for big peaches, and they found this one and brought it to our attention,” Al Pearson, owner of Pearson Farm, said.

The farm contacted Guinness World Records since the peach outweighs the current record holder. That previous record-holder peach is from Roseridge Orchards in Canada, according to the Guinness World Records website.

Check it out for yourself on the Guinness website.

“Big peaches have always been an interesting event to me," saaid Pearson while awaiting a ruling by Guiness, "but looking on the internet, if this is in fact is a world record according to Guinness, that’d be a little more of a special event for us.”

Peaches typically weigh anywhere from a third of a pound to half a pound. Pearson Farm’s massive 1.8-pound peach grew naturally just like the rest of its peaches.

“These trees didn’t have a good crop of peaches on them, so a lot of the energy of this tree was spent on growing a few good peaches,” Pearson said.

Guinness requires the weight of the peach to be verified by an independent state agency. That happened when University of Georgia Cooperative Extension County Coordinator Jeff Cook checked the weight of the peach on a set of verified scales.

“A little over a pound is about the biggest you’re normally going to get. It was definitely impressive,” Cook said. “From a commercial production standpoint it’s just a novelty, but it’s exciting to see something that big from right around here.”

“We put the peach in a Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer. We got in touch with Guinness. They said it would be two weeks before they could really have a response,” Pearson said. “We’re not the biggest peach farm, but right now we ... have the biggest peach.”