Apple Orchard
Fire, flood, and drought. This year had all the makings of a Hollywood disaster movie, but B.C. growers faced all these challenges and more in 2017. It was a year of close calls, fearful moments and destruction, with history being written less about the fruit and more about the work of Mother Nature compounded by perhaps a few careless humans.
Despite these challenges, the season was far from complete doom and gloom. Some unlikely benefits came out of this year of difficulties and in the end, growers of all stripes shone bright. There is no doubt that when the going gets tough, the farmers get going!
The fires this year did not impact orchards, vineyards (unlike in 2002), but growers everywhere felt the angst of ranchers and others in the livestock industries where losses were devastating. That said, the year’s extreme weather had varying effects on most BC crops.
Here’s a look at how that extreme weather, and other factors, contributed to the fruit-growing season. One common theme of note was great fruit quality but reduced fruit size.
Small but flavourful apples and pears
Apples and pears are taking more acreage in the Lower Mainland, but these crops were no more immune to the weather challenges than their interior counterparts. Summer Dhillon, marketing manager with Abbotsford’s Taves Family Farms noted irrigation was a necessary aspect in 2017.
“The weather definitely affected production, without question,” she says. “It [the season] started later. Perhaps you could argue that it was early the last couple of years.”
Fred Steele, president of the BC Fruit Growers Association (BCFGA), agrees, saying the last couple of seasons were early in the interior regions.
“We’re running about an average year from what I can tell,” he says. “There is a bit of sizing issue depending on soil types… but overall, depending on the type of irrigation you had, you’re probably going to be okay. I had a lot of smaller fruit.”
Hank Markgraf, grower services manager with BC Tree Fruits, confirmed sizing was down.
“One box size down in apples and pears,” he says. “It was a hot, hot season. Nutrients are always challenged in that [weather]. I don’t think we mucked up too badly but we had to really watch and work on that.”
Markgraf explained that growers went from one end of the spectrum to the other in a very short period of time.
“You go from ‘the lake is too high’ to the district saying there may be water restrictions,” he says. “There’s some challenges out there with the hot weather for sure. We’re going to have to watch our fruit all the way through storage.”
At the Taves’ U-pick farm, storage isn’t a concern. Apples undesired by the picking public end up in Applebarn-brand cold-pressed cider. Yet Dhillon notes apple size is down at Taves’.
“They were all delayed a bit. A week to three weeks, with an average of two weeks,” she explains. “The weather did definitely affect size.”
She adds that irrigation made a difference as irrigated orchards produced apples of a more traditional size. The taste and quality however, was not impacted, according to Dhillon.
“They were sweet, so there’s nothing wrong with the quality,” she notes.
Markgraf sees how the good weather created a crush in terms of picking.
“It has been a fairly nice harvest, very little rain, very little interruptions,” he explains. “But… we need more pickers and they don’t magically appear.”
An obvious concern was the record-setting smoke from BC’s worst forest fire in history. This is where the story takes an interesting turn, adding benefits for different crops.
“They [the fires] didn’t damage apples and pear at all,” says Steele. “In fact they actually benefited apples and pears because the cloud cover was enough to mitigate some of the intense sun and to prevent sun burn.”
Fortunately, in this year of extremes, pests were also not much of an issue. Spotted wing drosophila (SWD) and clearwing weren’t excessive challenges, though new pests are on the radar with the brown marmorated stinkbug and apple maggot. Markgraf notes stinkbugs were found in urban areas in both Penticton and Kelowna, but fortunately not in an orchard. Yet.
Apple maggot also made an appearance though it’s hard to say if the discovery of the dead apple maggot fly raises a flag at this point.
“It’s not a question of if, but when. We’re the only market in North America that doesn’t have apple maggot,” Steele explains.
With a lot of fruit in the pipeline, both Markgraf and Steele see prices being slightly lower than last year and they are not expected to increase. It’s not so much a byproduct of the modest increase in apple acreage, but the condensed harvest timing.
Pears, per usual, faced similar challenges to apples. Size is down but quality is good. There is no growth in pear acreage and while there are new varieties expected, they take a considerable length of time compared to other fruit varieties.
Apple maggot and the brown marmorated stink bug will impact pears in the future if the bugs make their way into orchards as these are equal opportunity pests.
“It was not an impact,” Markgraf says of the stink bug and this year’s fruit crops. “We are mindful of it, starting to worry about it. Starting to wonder what to do with it in seasons to come.”
Stone Fruits: Forecast for small with a chance of mildew
Mildew is generally thought of as a moisture lover, but powdery mildew loves the heat. It made more of a nuisance of itself than in previous years in a wide range of crops including stone fruits.
“It loves dry heat,” notes Markgraf. “All the other diseases like warm and wet, but not this one. It reared its head in the peaches at the end and nectarines at the end so we just had to be mindful of it at the end of the season. We just stayed on top of it as best as we could but it was a challenge.”
Fortunately, the standard pests – SWD and cherry fruit fly – weren’t the issues they have been in past years.
“As far as soft fruits are concerned, the peak of SWD happened much later than harvest,” Markgraf says. “It really didn’t impact those crops too much.”
The start of the season was late due to cold and wet conditions and growers who asked for a break in the rain got their wish in spades.
“The joke that I’ve kind of been telling people is that we went from monsoon to desert in a week,” says Markgraf. “From flooding to ‘I don’t know that my irrigation system can keep up’.”
The late start and extreme heat had growers anticipating small fruit at harvest. Like apples and pears, stone fruits were one box size smaller and also like apples and pears, the harvest came hot and heavy with no breaks.
“Harvest maturity was coming fairly rapidly,” Markgraf explains. “Not that we’re not used to that but the… harvest windows were shortening. That put pressure on the early variety in that commodity group all the way to the end variety. It snowballed upon itself. Most of the growers managed it.”
The yield volumes for stone fruits were slightly higher and quality was good according to Markgraf – about the same as last year. The acreage for stone fruits has, as Markgraf puts it, “flatlined.”
Cheering on cherries to grow
Cherries too had great flavour, high brix, but were assaulted by powdery mildew. With SWD and cherry fruit fly managed for the most part, the problem was the heat – similar for most other crops. This excessive heat after the wet spring drove reduced fruit size in cherries and a harvest that wouldn’t quit.
“We went from commodity to commodity to commodity,” explains Markgraf. “It just didn’t stop. It was much more intense for everybody. There was a packing overlap as well.”
The reduction in size and need to control mildew presented another challenge: ensuring cherries could be shipped internationally.
“The challenge for us is that we always hope that we can sell to everyone in the world and not everyone agrees with the traces of chemical that we have. Some countries have more restrictive entrance requirements than others.”
Greg Norton, third generation cherry farmer with Okanagan Harvest, adds that while the fires didn’t claim any orchards, they may have contributed to the mildew issue.
“Lots of people were caught with a lot of mildew on their cherries,” he says. “I would say the mildew, part of the problem was caused by the smoke. The good news about the smoke was that it helped moderate the temperature.”
Norton’s positive observation was echoed by those in other commodities. The smoke cover helped provide slight relief from extreme heat, yet couldn’t help the lack of moisture.
“From the point when they could split to harvest – that’s usually a six-week period – we didn’t have one drop of rain,” he notes. “I’ve never seen that. The market was pretty depressed this year. There was an oversupply of cherries. I don’t know what the pricing overall is going to be but I know it’s going to be a low price year.”
The price for cherries did not jump up in August as has been the case in previous years. The glut of smaller sized fruit was less attractive to consumers although the flavour and quality was good.
“It was a pretty tumultuous marketing season,” notes Norton. “It started out pretty good, pretty optimistic, but it didn’t take long before we saw lots of panic going on.”
Despite this year’s over-supply and reduced pricing, cherries are still increasing in acreage.
Berries battled cold but had relief from SWD
A cold, wet spring pushed pollination and bud-set later than usual in berries. This turned to extreme heat most don’t handle well, but for some strawberries at least, the results were good.
Alf Krause, co-owner of Krause Berry Farms and Estate Winery as well as vice-president with the BC Strawberry Growers Association, says it was a very different season. While there were issues with SWD, thrips, mites, weevils and aphids, they weren’t as aggressive as past seasons.
With the late start, Krause notes the quality was exceptional for June berries. The size was bigger than previous years and pricing is thought to be up by 10 or 15 per cent.
“The June season, I think the yields were down, I know they were down for us, so there was less crop around, so the demand was good,” he explains. “It was a slow start, but then it took off and didn’t last that long. Rain, rain, rain and then it changed and the weather was beautiful.”
Some growers in the Fraser Valley experienced winter kill of plants which contributed to the lower volume of June berries in the market. This is the opposite of ever-bearing, or day-neutral, berries which saw an over-supply.
“Firm berries but a little bit on the smaller side,” he says of the ever-bearing varieties (Albion being the most dominant). “The yield was good. The supply was in the surplus situation which in turn created a lower price.”
He anticipates up to a 20 per cent drop in pricing.
“The problem is that we know with fresh product oversupply, it doesn’t take much for the price to go down, which in the end doesn’t move any more product,” he explains. “Farmers need to reevaluate. A lot of them have been switching over to day-neutrals, but the market can only hold so much.”
With strawberries, Krause validates Norton’s point about the smoke creating a heat barrier of sorts.
“The smoke coming in during that hottest spell that was going to happen was probably a positive just to keep them from getting too hot,” he says. “[The heat] just didn’t materialize to the extent that it could have because we had the haze the whole time.”
Arvin Neger, chair of the Raspberry Industry Development Council echoed Krause’s comments on SWD stating that the pest was not as great a concern.
“This year, actually, the pressure was not as high,” he says. “There were low trap numbers. Weekly monitoring. We started a little bit earlier this year because we had a cold winter. When it’s that cold, the SWD population drops down significantly and that’s why I think we had lower populations this year.”
With that reward however, came a price. The cold winter caused damage to raspberry fields.
“The tonnage is down overall,” he notes. “Usually we have a very strong peak for raspberries, but this year it seemed pretty uniform. We didn’t really get that big spike that we usually get in our harvest.”
Both growers and packers have seen the decline in overall yields. Despite the drop, raspberry growers had excellent quality, some of the best that Neger has seen in a long time. Also like other fruit growers, the berries did not have the opportunity to grow to significant sizes.
“The sugar levels were definitely high this year,” he says. “The size was good at the beginning, but at the end the berries didn’t get a chance to size up because it was so hot and so dry.”
Sadly, this hot dry weather also created pressure from mites.
Some fields are being replanted while others are being ripped out. It’s hard to say if raspberries are undergoing a decline in acreage but this seems to be the trend from what Neger can determine.
Decline in blueberry yields
In her notes to blueberry growers, Karina Sakalauskas of the BC Ministry of Agriculture, says the harsh winter, rainy spring and dry summer resulted in lower yields in general. This is confirmed by Anju Gill, acting executive director with the BC Blueberry Council.
“The yields are estimated to be lower this year,” she says. “From approximately 164 million pounds to approximately 135 million.”
Here too, SWD was not as big a problem as in previous years. Jack Bates of Tecarte Farms and chair of the BC Blueberry Council said he’s chalking up the reduced numbers of SWD up to the weather and the possibility that it could be levelling out.
“Sometimes some of these invasive species seem to take off the first few years, then they maybe level out a bit,” he says. “Probably too soon to make that observation. It may have had more to do with the weather we had last year.”
Gill adds, “After nearly a decade, growers are adapting to managing SWD, however continued research and development is vital for a better handle on it in the future.”
While yields are down, fruit quality is excellent according to Bates. He also feels later varieties like blue crop and dew drop did better than earlier ripening varieties.
“Early and mid-season crops, I’d say, were down. Late season, I’d say they did all right. We had lots of sunlight, a dry summer and I think all that adds to fruit quality,” he notes. “People had to pick on time. That all comes back to fruit management.”
It was the weather, yet again, that made things more challenging for growers, with late pollination and some frost damage from the prior winter. Though Bates adds that with the various micro-climates throughout the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley it’s hard to say that weather was the same for any two fields, however, one theme was dominant overall.
“The weather was against us in the springtime definitely,” Bates says. “It pushed everything back.”
He feels that fresh market pricing was up from last year and adds that the frozen market is showing early signs of having an increased price.
Bates doesn’t see a lot of new acreage of blueberries being planted, but does see farms replanting with different varieties.
Cranberries: Red is the new black
Of all the berry crops, cranberries appear to have come out the most stable in this difficult year. While overall yield is expected to be down and the weather definitely came off as a serious antagonist, Heather Carrier, general manager with the BC Cranberry Marketing Commission described the year as a positive one.
“There were no new pests this year and no problematic existing ones,” she says. “While there may have been a late start due to weather this spring, the growers caught up throughout the season with all that great sunshine they saw.”
Grant Keefer of Yellow Point Cranberries and chair of the BC Cranberry Growers’ Association describes harvest timing as fairly typical, running from late September to mid-November.
Keefer noted there were no new pests, though “very low levels of cranberry fire worm,” were found in early generations. Cranberry tip worms behaved as expected, though the cycle of the worm did seem to extend longer than usual.
While previous years brought cranberries (and other fruit) to market earlier, this was a “normal” year according to Keefer. This also extends to a “normal” yield, though the lack of moisture was a problem for some growers’ harvests.
“The overall crop will probably be down a bit, there are many fields under different stages of renovation, some just getting ready to replant in 2018 and some being one or two years old but not in production yet,” he says.
Some growers did have the challenge of waiting for rain (which fortunately came) to keep frost at bay while allowing late berries to ripen and providing water to assist in bog flooding.
Keefer notes pricing has been fairly stable, but with a downward trend due to a high inventory of cranberry concentrate in the entire North American market.
Grapes: The curious case of smoke and mildew
Grapes too saw a later than normal start with the cold rains in spring. This moisture was present when the temperatures started to heat up and contributed to what Val Tait, general manager and winemaker with Bench 1775 and vice president with the British Columbia Grape Growers’ Association, called “tremendous green growth.”
The excess growth also contributed to a higher risk for mildew.
“Timing of sprays and coverage of the vines was critical,” Tait says. “We used an organic spray of sulphur which is a mechanical barrier to mildew growth, but it had to be reapplied often to work. Although we had good control of mildew, I do know of vineyards that were wiped out from mildew infections.”
Forest fires were a great concern in the Okanagan region especially, but fortunately no vineyards were lost. The second concern, once the risk of fire had passed, was whether smoke might impact the crops.
“Very luckily for us, the smoke in the valley was early in the ripening cycle before veraison and before the grapes formed their waxy bloom or waxy coating on the berries which binds the volatile phenolic oil, which is the cause of smoke taint,” she says. “We anticipate no problems from smoke taint and early testing shows negligible amounts of the smoke taint molecule.”
Obviously location and timing are key and time will tell which vineyards escape smoke taint and which do not. White and rosé wines are not at risk, only reds where the skin is used in fermentation.
The smoke helped to reduce temperatures on grapes as with other crops, so some vineyards are expecting a very different vintage than previous years.
“Heavy rains and a late start to the season meant growth of the vines was directed towards green leafy growth and late development of fruit,” Tait notes. “The good thing about late fruit ripening is that much better quality results when fruit ripens in cooler conditions. The bad thing is fruit needs to hang longer into the season. So far, frost has been low, but we are at risk.”
Tait sees yields in the South Okanagan as being higher due to larger fruit size, where central Okanagan vineyards are likely to be at the historical average for yield. Overall, yields will be about the same as new plantings are slowing down.
“The land available for grape planting is becoming more and more marginal and less suited to premium wine production,” she says. “Grapes are now in short supply because of all the new wineries that have sprung up. There are a few replants going on as wineries identify areas or sites being better suited to certain varietals. Expect that to increase over time as greater competition and consumer expectation for quality wines force poor quality fruit off the market.”
Grapes are in the prime of their life in the interior regions of the province. As Tait notes, competition for premium fruit is driving prices upwards as supply tightens. She adds that the prices being paid for wineries recently sold is reminiscent of other prestigious wine-making regions like Sonoma and Napa Valleys.