2019 Fruit Report - Weather Shapes the Season

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Weather always plays a major role in the fruit season, but in 2019 it seemed to make up the entire cast of characters including both heroes and villains.

Mother Nature played games with fruit growers in 2019 and in most cases, they were the types of games that are far from fun. She threw out positives and negatives to the point that many growers didn’t know if they were coming or going and ultimately everyone was left exhausted and happy to put the season behind them.

Having had just about every kind of weather possible in the growing and harvest seasons of the last five years (extreme heat, extreme cold, fire, smoke, hail and more) it would seem nothing could surprise growers. But as Orchard & Vine spoke to experts about this year’s yields, fruit quality, pests and more, it was apparent Mother Nature still had tricks up her sleeves.

Cherry growers were on non-stop alert, stone fruit growers had a damaging early frost and raspberries dealt with a late harsh winter that has put the fruit’s future in jeopardy. Find out more about how these and other fruits fared in this 2019 fruit recap.

Tree Fruits

Cherries down by as much as 50%

Cherry grower Penny Gambell of Gambell Farms in Lake Country says the season was tiring with the constant need for fans and helicopters to combat the rain on a near daily basis.

“It just never let up,” she says.

It was a far cry from the expectations at the outset of the season according to Warren Sarafinchan, CEO with BC Tree Fruits.

“When the season started, there was a healthy level of optimism that the crop was going to be good,” he says.

Hardest hit were Gambell’s favourite types of cherries, the older varieties like Van. She estimates their orchard lost up to about 40 per cent of the crop. These losses are unfortunately about average for cherry growers this year given what Hank Markgraf, consultant through Hank’s Horticulture, has seen. He notes that the season was already challenged in early spring when pollination and bud set weren’t as high as they have been in the past and yields were being estimated at a 10 to 15 per cent decline. Then, the rains came. About 35 mm in July according to Sarafinchan, which is highly abnormal given July 2018’s two mm.

“Cherry growers really had a challenge. It just rained and rained and rained. It kind of let up in August,” Sarafinchan explains. “Some varieties have 70 per cent lost. Skeena was the main one like that.”

With the rain tap running continuously, cherry split was inevitable and growers found battling the water to be a daily struggle. Gambell says that while her son is used to having to dry the fruit from rain fall, doing it every day became exhausting. However, the fruit that did make it through the rains was of good quality.

“Yes, they were firm, nice cherries,” she says, but adds that they didn’t command an increased price.

She notes that some growers were trying to sell fruit of varying quality so those with lower quality and lower prices kept the overall prices down at their usual amount despite the higher losses. Markgraf notes that some growers were lucky enough to garner higher prices due to the drop in available fruit.

“It’s difficult to deal with on a daily basis,” says Markgraf of the rain. “It just got really tiresome. It wears you down. It’s a lot to ask a piece of fruit to be blowdryed by a helicopter that many times.”

While SWD was a minor issue (so long as growers sprayed and timed it right), the warm, wet weather caused an increase in powdery mildew that was hard for some to stay on top of. It was a balancing act between spraying for pests and disease and drying the trees and fruit.

“It really hurt the cherry business,” Sarafinchan says of the resulting cherry split. “Our volumes were down north of 20 per cent. In fact, it was closer to 30 per cent.”

The level of losses varied depending upon orchard varieties and location but overall the growers worked very hard to create a decent season despite the losses. Fewer cherries were shipped to China than in past years and European sales were down, but overall cherry acreage is on the rise creating optimism for future seasons.

Stone fruits hit by early frost

Stone fruit growers have been declining in numbers for a while and that continued into the 2019 season.

As Markgraf puts it, “It’s a difficult crop.”

While the acreage for peaches and nectarines has remained relatively stable, the number of acres for prunes, plums and apricots have dropped. This year illustrated how challenging the stone fruit crop can be with an early frost that took about 70 to 80 per cent of the apricot yield, reduced the plum volumes and impacted peaches to a lesser degree. Because of the limited supply and reduction in growers, pricing for stone fruits continues to rise.

“If you could have apricots this year, you could probably sell them for whatever you wanted,” Markgraf says. “Nectarines were down, but okay.”

Pests like SWD weren’t the issue they have been in the past, but there was powdery mildew pressure, though not at the levels seen by cherry growers. Cherries are favoured by many who have pulled out of stone fruits, but Markgraf says cherries are both easier in some ways and harder in others to grow.

He sees room for more peaches and nectarines in the market, though it’s unlikely there will be an apricot revival any time soon.

According to Sarafinchan, prune volumes were about the same as last year despite the frost.

“Those that do it, do it well,” summarized Markgraf of the stone fruit growers season.

Late season for apples and pears

With the rain hitting early in September and not letting up, apples and pears were challenged to get the usual bright, bold colours on their skins, which pushed harvest for many varieties out by a week or even two in some cases. The lateness hasn’t caused too many issues overall however. Apples are experiencing a slightly larger than average crop.

“It’s been an interesting season for sure,” says Markgraf. “We started off with a cool spring, which really didn’t affect the apples too much. Then it got cold, right after.”

Of course the rain that cause so much damage in cherries didn’t fall exclusively on cherry orchards. Apples and pears saw their fair share of it, but the impact was minimal except for the need to stay on top of diseases and pests that are wet-climate lovers.

“The wet season continued,” he says. “Probably one of the wettest ones I can recall in a long time. It just continued. Growers had to be on top of their fungicide throughout the season, more so than they have had to in past seasons.”

While the fruit ultimately made out okay, the rain did put pressure on growers according to Sarafinchan.

“I’m really happy with how everybody has worked together to get the crop in,” He says. “It was a year unlike others they’ve seen.”

The work to harvest was done in “fits and starts” between the rain rather than over several consecutive days as it usual is done. It was a challenge, says Markgraf.

“We’ve got a good crop,” he says. “Bigger than last year, about 10, maybe 15 per cent, more than last year.”

Fruit size and quality has been good as well, despite the experience of growers who received a healthy dose of hail and unfortunately had to take their crop straight to juice, but Markgraf says, that was the exception, rather than the norm.

Fire blight was a significant issue growers had to stay on top of, but there were few other pests or diseases Markgraf notes.

“We definitely were working through fire blight and we don’t have that many controls,” he says. “Not everybody had it. We had to time our sprays – the few that we do have – just perfectly. We had to do a lot of cutting.”

Apple scab was kept under control, but one pest Sarafinchan notes as being a concern is codling moth. Codling moth causes a small scab-like dot which is actually excretion caused from the larvae tunneling into the fruit allowing for bacteria and disease to set in to the core during storage.

Apple acreage remains relatively flat overall, though Markgraf notes there is a continued shift from older varieties to new ones like Ambrosia. Pricing is expected to stay about the same as it was last year although BC growers are likely to be impacted by what he calls “one of the biggest crops Washington state has ever produced.”

Pear growers experienced a successful season despite facing similar challenges to that of apple growers. However, pear acreage is quite small comparatively and D’Anjous were down in yield slightly.

“The remaining guys did a pretty fantastic job with it, so that’s our bright spot there actually,” Markgraf says of pears, which had less of an issue with fireblight. “It was a pretty clean, smooth year for pears. Overall, beautiful size, good crop.”

Berries

Winter blasted raspberries

Raspberries had as hard of a season as cherries, though in this case, the weather incident happened long before harvest and improved as the summer approached. In February a cold snap hit the Meeker variety, and a few other types of raspberries hard, to the point that some growers were expecting a near wipe out of the crop. Fortunately, many of the canes rebounded in the late spring and were able to produce a modest crop, down by about 30 per cent of usual volumes. Cold comfort to growers who were expecting a bumper crop year.

James Bergen, chair of the Raspberry Industry Development Council and part of the family behind Bergen Farms notes the weather issues may lead some growers to consider crop insurance.

“Several pulled out their fields that had significant winter damage this fall,” he says. “A weather event like this has not happened in at least 10 years and we have had some other extreme weather in between, such as in 2018 when we had freezing rain that coated every raspberry cane in a layer of ice.”

He feels the mild January may have brought some plants out of dormancy only to be damaged by the extreme low temperatures of February. David Mutz of Berry Haven Farm noted it ended up being much better than expected at harvest than when the winter damage revealed itself.

“Still a lighter crop, but not as devastating as was expected,” he says. “Unfortunately, the market is still not great for raspberries.”

Growers who had newer, stronger varieties made it through the winter okay, like those of Alf Krause of Krause Berry Farms and Estate Winery. However, there were some pests.

“The quality was great overall,” Krause says. “Similar pest pressures. SWD and more yellow rust than usual.”

Growers found that the quality of berries was good in spite of the challenges.

Krause sees the berry breeding program as the bright light for raspberry growers. New varieties suited for the Fraser Valley’s climate will deliver quality and volume, so the provincial and federal government’s funding (announced earlier in 2019) into the breeding of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries will go a long way. However, Bergen notes it will be a few years before any of the promising varieties are available to growers.

“The raspberry industry will likely continue to see a decline in acreage in the coming years and with that, overall yield,” Bergen says. “Fields that are coming out are older fields, across many different varieties and it appears many are being replanted into other crops, but mainly blueberries. I expect to see a further decline in acreage in the coming years unless there is an increase in the return price to the growers.”

Estimates put raspberry production at just 13,000,000 pounds this year harvested from about 2,000 acres. Some feel acreage might drop even lower when the dust settles. The rains of September put an end to a disappointing season.

Cranberries stay consistent

It would have been nearly impossible for cranberries to have had the same season they had in 2018 with the massive bumper crop (1.3 million barrels) experienced by BC growers, so 2019 is expected to finish down from last year. Plants simply can’t produce at those volumes year over year.

Grant Keefer of Yellow Point Cranberries and treasurer of the BC Cranberry Growers Association says that warm October weather and new varieties like Crimson Queen and Demoranville helped growers get berries out before Thanksgiving and reach the optimal TAcy fruit colour rating preferred by Ocean Spray. Ocean Spray buys about 95% of the fruit from BC’s 78 growers. Mike Dance, agriculture operations area manager with Ocean Spray agrees, noting that growers who have established new varieties are seeing good performance.

“We had a real cold spell in February that may have affected some of our yield,” Dance says. “We think we lost some of our product at that time.”

He adds that the colder growing season in early summer set things back a little, but overall quality was good with no excessive pests of note. He says that while some growers are pulling out the traditional Stevens variety, others are still seeing good performance from it.

“From a regional perspective, I think in the short haul, there will be areas for growers to improve on their farms and we see them doing that,” he says. “I think BC is setting themselves up for the long haul. We see growers doing a lot of good things out there.”

Keefer agrees, stating, “Fruit quality seems fine in the fields from what I hear, but there are always improvements that can be made.”

Cranberry acreage in 2018 was 6,382 acres down from the 6,650 acres noted by Statistics Canada for 2017, but up from previous years.

Strawberries have a successful year

Strawberries seem to have held their own in 2019. With overall crops at approximately 50 per cent everbearing and 50 per cent June bearing (and shifting to more everbearing) according to Krause, it was a good growing season with above average crop yields for most growers.

“The importance of the fresh June crop is very significant,” he says. “It signals the start of summer and really the first fruit of the season. The joy of the everbearing is that the crop is a little earlier than the June strawberry to get the ball rolling, but it does create marketing frustration in August when all the other berries and fruits are available as well.”

Weather didn’t impact strawberries the way it did many other fruits. The only damper from Mother Nature was the early September rains which essentially ended the harvest of everbearing fruit.

“It put a premature end to the season in early September,” said Bergen of the rain. “We grow Albion at our farm and with our second year field, we had our best crop in the last five years. Quality was great and yield higher than average.”

Mutz noted that pests were manageable with “the usual suspects, thrips, lygus.”

Everbearing fruit seems to be bolstering strawberries stability in that September can bring enthusiasm around local berries again, like the first May or June push into the market.

Acreage of strawberries has remained stable at about 500 acres after a number of years of being pulled out. Some growers are experimenting with high-volume plantings and are achieving great results. Despite the light acreage, estimates are at about 2,000,000 pounds of fruit for the 2019 season.

Blueberries continue to grow

Before blueberries ripened, growers were treated to the International Blueberry Organization’s Summit in June, 2019 in Richmond, BC. Anju Gill, executive director with the BC Blueberry Council notes that the event brought the global blueberry industry to BC.

“This gave BC growers an opportunity to hear from and engage with fellow growers and experts from around the globe on the state of the blueberry industry,” she says.

From the event, Gill’s takeaway includes four key points: New varieties, regions and methods will deliver fresh blueberries throughout the year; competition will force growing regions to produce better blueberries; technology will reduce costs and increase efficiencies; and logistics of shipping berries will continue to challenge the industry.

Despite the fact that BC’s overseas export of blueberries is still in its infancy, Gill notes that by the end of August approximately 51 million pounds of fresh and frozen berries were exported. This ties into BC’s overall expected yield of 190 million pounds for 2019, which is higher than the three-year average of 155 million pounds. An increase number of growers, more acreage, young plantings reaching full potential and a range of other factors contributed to the increased yield.

Krause expected the late winter freeze that nearly crippled raspberries to have a negative impact on blueberries, but was happy to find that his own farm’s yield was up, despite the threat.

“For us, the crop was up and good quality,” he says. “The crop timing found some gaps in the market and stabilized the price. The industry is expanding on variety selection to spread out the season.”

Mutz found that the season got rolling a little earlier than most growers expected.

“That put some people behind, given the large crop,” he explains. “And some had quality issues. Up and down, some areas got significantly more rain in July.”

Fortunately pest pressures were relatively low, even with SWD, though Gill noted that the cycling weather of dry days, rain and cool days increased both disease and pest pressures on the plants and fruit.

New varieties aren’t yet leading to renovations to fields but Mutz predicts some of the Elliott variety may be coming out in favour of newer varieties in future years.

Currently blueberry acreage is sitting at about 30,000 acres which is more than double what BC had just a decade ago.

Grapes

Slower to ripen and yield down slightly

Not surprisingly, the weather in 2019 wasn’t as conducive to grapes as it has been in previous years, but it certainly wasn’t a blow-out terrible year either. Similar to what was encountered by other fruit growers, the season was much more challenging than usual.

Mary McDermott, winemaker with Township7 Vineyards & Winery and board member with the BC Wine Grape Council notes that the rain in September led to botrytis and sour rot issues.

“And grapes swelled and then started to break down with all the rain,” she says. “Powdery mildew was also a factor, but as most of the rain occurred after sugar accumulation, it was only a factor if it was already present.”

The same problems occurred in the Fraser Valley growing region as in the interior regions which made things even more difficult for growers in Langley and other parts of the Lower Mainland where conditions often lead to a need for increased management practices.

“Weather was a big factor as picking schedules had to be carefully managed as rain delayed picks,” McDermott says. “Most growers were flexible and if they had the opportunity would spray to prevent any further problems.”

Unfortunately, red grapes took the brunt of Mother Nature as she turned the heat down and the water up. Whites and early reds did fine (although faced some picking challenges), but the bigger, bolder red wine grapes had to wait for better weather to get sugars up higher.

“In my personal experience, yields were down somewhat,” she says. “Some of that is because of the viticulture practices that we used on our own vineyards. Growers who had larger crops tended to get into some trouble as the cooler summer and wet fall did not allow for complete ripening.”

Township7’s Langley-based vineyards were at an average yield, but Lower Mainland vineyards faced the same challenges in harvesting around the rain. Fortunately, McDermott feels the quality of grapes is good both in the interior regions and in the Lower Mainland despite the difficulties.

“I am pleasantly surprised at the moment, as I was expecting this to be quite a difficult year,” she says. “I think there will be some who experienced problems with lower Brix levels and higher pH as well as disease.”

She describes this year as a good “learning curve” for those who have recently planted vines.

“It will be interesting to see how growers and winemakers meet the challenges,” she says. “I believe it will also focus the industry on the varietals that are best suited to the differing sites around the province.”

As the weather shifts and changes from season to season, she sees the benefit being a greater understanding of one’s own vineyard and the ability to prepare for a range of weather.

“In the end, it means we have learned to manage our vineyards and winemaking better,” she says. “Only positive things can come from this.”

Areas with growing vineyard acreage include the Fraser Valley, Kamloops and Lillooet.

“Acreage is also increasing in the Okanagan,” she explains. “Vineyards are being planted farther north in areas like Lake Country. Planting is also happening in the Similkameen Valley.”

Red and white grape tonnage remains relatively even with Merlot the most predominant followed by Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Organic

Depending upon the crop, organic fruit growers came upon similar challenges as their conventional-growing counterparts but, are faced with the additional dilemma of having fewer tools to meet those challenges. Neil Sproule of Sproule & Sons Farm in Oyama is happy to have signed up for crop insurance when it comes to this year’s fruit crop.

“The crop on our farm sustained about a 60 to 70 per cent loss in cherries and we have filed a claim with crop insurance,” he says. “We did our normal program on our fruits that we have been doing for years, however, the weather played a huge role in how our crops turned out.”

Sproule spoke to another organic cherry grower based in Kelowna and found that they had the same issues with cherry split and crop loss. Just as bad as Sproule, if not worse, he says.

At Sunreal Organic Farm and Market (home to Upside Cider), Isaac Potash had the same problems with cherries as everyone else.

“Cherries were a complete write-off,” he says, explaining that he lost the entire crop.

All of Sproule & Sons organic fruit is grown on 15 acres, of which about half is leased. The focus is on cherries, peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes and pears. So with the harsh early frost hitting stone fruits hard and the rain causing losses across the board for cherries, it was a difficult season for Sproule and other organic growers to say the least.

“The 2019 fruit season was difficult due to the February freeze and in July, too much rain,” he explains. “This presented a lot of splitting in the cherries and brown rot in the other fruits.”

Although Potash’s apples did great, the early cold snap wreaked havoc on the apricots on his farm, much the same as other for organic and conventional growers.

“Our challenges were in the early season fruit,” he says. “Apricots were down because we had a -3 frost in full blossom.”

With reduced pollination and blossom set from the frost, it was obvious from the outset yields would be down for both Sproule and Potash.

Fortunately, Sproule sees the market for stone fruits as one with future growth potential for organic growers. He, and other fruit growers will be happy to put the 2019 season behind him and is looking forward to a better season in 2020.