Winter in BC
BC grape and tree fruit growers expect yet another hit from the wild weather in 2021.
In addition to the deadly heat dome in June and the catastrophic floods of November, an unprecedented cold snap over the holidays has growers fearing more crop damage.
The Christmas holidays were marked by temperatures in the -20s in the Okanagan and much of the southern BC Interior. Glen Lucas, general manager of the BC Fruit Growers Association (BCFGA) says the organization believes that extreme and sudden drop in temperature has damaged fruit trees and grape vines throughout the region.
“It does seem we’ve had some winter damage,” said Lucas. “That very deep period of cold we had just before Christmas is the concern.
“It’s too early to say how bad it could be. We are just starting some initial work, and you have to dissect the buds to really see what’s happening, and that will happen over the next couple of months as we try to find out what’s happening.”
Lucas said one reason growers research frost damage is to get a better idea of labour requirements for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, and that data needs to be available by the end of May.
At the moment, the BCFGA believes it is almost certain there will be damage affecting productivity in 2022, but most of the information at this point is anecdotal. “I’ve heard grapes have been impacted but I don’t know the detail on that, as it’s mostly anecdotal information,” Lucas explained. “I also think there is concern about cherries, and some of the other soft fruit, I don’t have a read on yet, like peaches and fruit plums and so on. Apricots is a smaller crop but they are quite sensitive to cold, so I suspect there will be some impact there.”
Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor said in late December that the wild swings in weather in BC created a ‘high amplitude pattern’ that generates longer periods of wild, often disastrous weather extremes.
“The one thing I will say about the past seasons is that we’ve had this very high-amplitude pattern,” Proctor said. “When we get these high-amplitude patterns, it’s often very difficult to shift out of it.”
Climatologists predict global warming will make these extreme weather shifts more common, and Lucas says farmers are working together with the BC government to see how they can best adapt to a more extreme climate.
“We formed a group to look at a new program called agriculture climate solutions, and it will be looking at some of these climate change questions,” he said. “We want to see what actions can we take at the farm level to make sure the trees are not impacted by a heat dome, for example. “