Worst case scenario for B.C. fruit growers as many crops ruined
Now that we’ve arrived at blossom time, it really shows the damage. It’s a disaster like this is the worst I’ve ever seen. Fears a winter kill would devastate BC Fruit crops have now been realized. We will not have a cherry crop this year on on our farm and and many farmers are in that same position. Charlotte Dube owns the Cherry pit and other Calgary Farmers Market stores. She says some cherries will be harvested in southern BC, but they will come at a high price for cherry lovers here in Calgary. Other fruit crops can’t be salvage. No, it’s not good. What? 3 weeks ago I got a phone call from my one of my main growers and he couldn’t find 1 blossom on any of his trees. There’s just not going to be any Peaches, nectarines and apricots or soft stone fruit from the BC region. Dube says she will do what she can to source fruit from other areas. As of this weekend, we will actually have some California fruit, so we’re going to outsource to different places that that we don’t usually bring in. As for BC growers, the bills will continue to pile up even if the harvest is lost. We still have to spend all the money because I’ve heard people tell me, like, oh, you get a summer off, but that’s not how it works. We still have to go through and spray and do everything. We just won’t harvest, Dubey says. It’s hard times for the industry, worth over a billion dollars a year, according to Stats Canada. But if anything, it’s worse for the wine industry. Their crops, also largely destroyed by the late freeze in February, will not come back anytime soon. Because their wine grapes and their vines, they don’t bounce back as easy, so it could be up to three years that those grapes start producing a game. Doug Vasson, Global News.