BC tree fruit season on schedule
Posted June 28, 2017 12:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
KAMLOOPS (NEWS 1130) – Despite some areas getting a chillier than normal winter and a wetter than usual spring, the tree fruit growing season is on track, according to the BC Fruit Growers’ Association.
“People say the season is late. It’s actually not late, it’s on time or maybe even as much as eight or nine days behind, because we were a month ahead the last couple of years,” explains the association’s President Fred Steele. “I always tell people, you don’t have to go to Vegas to gamble, just farm.”
The wet spring may have prevented farmers from getting some projects done, Steele adds, which has put them slightly behind.
“There’s everything from equipment, spraying, checking your irrigation, all the maintenance on equipment,” he says, adding if farmers were having any problems, his phone would be ringing all the time. “And the phones aren’t ringing which means everybody is busy or they’re all behind.”
He says while some farmers may have lost some trees to frost this winter, the season was nothing compared to the 1950 deep freeze that wiped out a good section of the tree fruit industry. The wet spring may have also flooded some fields, but he says orchards are generally on higher ground and most were likely unaffected.
Steele says farmers can expect to harvest mid-September. Meanwhile, the province’s short strawberry harvesting season is in full swing.
