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Flooding interrupts sales for Illinois peach grower

An Illinois fruit grower has only been able to produce 40% of his usual peach crop this year and flooding in west central Illinois is forcing him to transport his crop to be sold elsewhere.

Tim Ringhausen, a fifth-generation fruit grower in Calhoun County, tells Brownfield a nearby levee was topped, filling his fruit packing shed with 20 feet of water.  

“I’ve got a pretty fair little peach crop myself but no shed to sell it out of. If this high water doesn’t go down, we aren’t going to get anybody in here to buy these peaches and we are going to have to truck them out.”

Ringhausen says this isn’t the first time this has happened, as he almost went out of business during the 1993 flood.

“I could quit. We just keep going on though, I just keep going down the road. It’s a passion.”

Ringhausen says he thinks he will get all his peaches sold, but if roads are not dry by fall, selling his apples will be a challenge.