KELOWNA – This is anything but a normal season for BC cherry growers, which is saying something after successive years of record payouts from the province’s AgriStability and Production Insurance programs.
“With the combined damage from the winter deep freeze and frost at bloom time, I don’t have any fruit at all,” says Sukhpaul Bal, an East Kelowna grower and president of the BC Cherry Association.
This doesn’t mean he can stop working, however. Without proper care, this year’s losses could easily turn into a multi-year disaster.
“It’s strange; part of me feels like I should be taking a break from farming, but I know that if I don’t take care of my trees this year, I won’t have a good crop next year,” he says.
With proper management, Bal says his trees should be on track to produce fruit again next year, but as the temperatures in the Okanagan Valley approached 40°C in mid-July, he was worried that they showed signs of stress similar to the impacts of the 2021 heat dome.
“The heat dome of ’21, the winter freeze events of December ’22 and January ’24, together with spring frosts, have really impacted my crop over the last three years,” Bal explains.
The province announced “a new enhanced replant program” of $70 million for fruit growers in March, following on the Perennial Crop Renewal Program announced a year earlier as part of a $200 million basket of food security funding.
The renewal program – government staff have pointedly refused to call it a replant program – supported pull-outs by hazelnut growers in addition to berry, grape and tree fruit growers last year and is now providing funds for planting this year.
Apple growers received some funds for planting this spring, and applications for cranberry growers closed July 6. Cherry growers will be able to submit applications for replanting from August 20-27.
Bal says the renewal program was “well intended” but lacked adequate funding. The funding provided could easily have been taken up entirely by pull-outs.
The new round of $70 million is nice, but Bal is sceptical of the enhancements, which a provincial press release flag as primarily applying to vineyards and wineries.
“We appreciate the funds, but the government didn’t consult with industry before they announced the new program,” Bal says. “I was hoping that ‘enhanced’ would provide us with funds for infrastructure to help the industry become more resilient to climate change, in addition to just replanting trees.”
Washington growers have installed shade covers over their most sun-affected blocks to lower temperatures and reduce the risk of sun damage to the fruit. The covers have an added advantage of protecting from hail as well.
In BC, Davison Orchards of Vernon has erected a shade and hail cover over a block of apple trees. Weather covers have been trialed at two Okanagan locations in recent years as well as one in Creston to protect fruit from rain.
“Covers come at a high cost, as well as the labour costs to open and close them, but given the variability in our weather patterns, perhaps these covers are an investment worth looking into,” notes BC Cherry research committee chair Gayle Krahn.
Krahn adds that retractable covers being employed by European cherry growers are also something to consider, as the covers can be quickly closed prior to rain events, and opened again to guard against mildew pressure. They can also be closed for frost, and longer cold events.
But the widespread adoption of crop covers has yet to take place in BC.
Bal says Infrastructure funding is key for cherry growers right now, and looks forward to the province making good on its pledge to work with industry to identify ways to enhance programming to make orchards more resilient.
Right now, the replant program is like offering people who’ve lost their home a rebate on new appliances without making sure they’ve got a new house first.
Bal says that cherry growers should approach replanting as if they were starting from scratch.
“We need to be looking at growing conditions we have today and with an eye to the future,” he says. “If we were putting in a new farm, we would be looking at building in infrastructure that would support us for future climate events. We can’t be successful farming the way we have in the past.”
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Co-op closure leaves growers in the lurch