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Originally published:

AUGUST 2021
Vol. 107 Issue 8

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Stories In This Edition

Heat Wave

Night moves

Record temps kill poultry

High heat, low moisture vexes ranchers

Editorial: Unprecedented

Back forty: Summer means being prepared for wildfires

Viewpoint: Overheated markets make farming harder

Province allows secondary homes in the ALR

National farm building code set for update

Grain producers refocus on advocacy, research

Ag Briefs: BC Blueberry Council gets new chair

Ag Briefs: Islands Trust defers policy statement

Ag Briefs: BCAC’s consumer research yields four key findings

Provincial meat licensing overhaul effective October

Farm fresh

New tech could build a better cattle fence

Buchler recognized for practices, generosity

First certified sustainable wine makes debut

Ag targetted to reduce emissions in Clean Air Plan

Helping cattle keep their cool in the heat

Free recycling of ag plastics for northern BC

Pesiticide colleciton returns to the southern interior

Indigienous farms plow new ground with funding

It’s easy being green

Flower farm meets growing demand

New resources support small-lot pork producers

BC going full boar against feral pigs

Cannabis grower has the ‘happiest worms’

AEMCoP updates take effect

Forging new successes with the family farm

Cutworm study looks at damage below ground

Beet growers see red over leaf miner

Armyworm pressure low

Research: Research explores scrapie resistance in goats

Sidebar: Scrapie eradication tips

Woodshed: Graduation plans sworn to secrecy

Cherry grower diversifies as orchard declines

Jude’s Kitchen: Eats for a hot summer day

Farm Story: Reaping more by sowing elss makes perfect sense

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6 days ago

Farmland Advantage is receiving a $445,000 grant from the federal government. The program, the “brainchild” of Invermere cattle rancher Dave Zehnder, provides compensation to farmers for their conservation efforts to protect BC’s grasslands, riparian areas and wildlife habitat. The funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada under the Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands (SARPAL) and Priority Places programs, will be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas appeared in our March 2022 edition and you can view it at ... See MoreSee Less

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Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas

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INVERMERE – Farmers and ranchers in the Columbia Valley will continue to see rewards for taking action to conserve and enhance important riparian areas on their farms. The Windermere District Farmer...
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2 weeks ago

A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural Land Commission hosted in Langley Monday night regarding a proposal to include 305 acres controlled by the federal government in the Agricultural Land Reserve. More than 76,000 people have signed an online petition asking municipal and provincial governments to protect the land from development, and for the federal government to grant a long-term lease to the Heppells. Read more in this morning's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. conta.cc/3XYXw6k ... See MoreSee Less

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Your weekly farm news update

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The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 January 25 2023 Surrey ALR inclusion cheered A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural L
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Mike Manion Pitt Meadows City Councillor

2 months ago

Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand this season and prices remain comparable to last year. But the number of tree farms has decreased dramatically over the past five years and the province will increasingly need to look elsewhere if it wants to meet local demand. More in this week's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. ... See MoreSee Less

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Christmas trees in demand

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Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand, with high quality trees making it to market. “The market is good. We’ll probably outdo last year and last year was one of our best years…
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2 months ago

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall. ... See MoreSee Less

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall.
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Avian influenza virus can be killed by chlorine at no higher a concentration than is present in drinking water, so unless farms are using untreated groundwater in their barns I don't see how it could be a source of transmission. www.researchgate.net/publication/5594208_Chlorine_Inactivation_of_Highly_Pathogenic_Avian_Influen...

2 months ago

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall. ... See MoreSee Less

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall.Image attachment
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Goes to show how far-removed our current government is from the agricultural sector. To put someone in this position who has no farming background is a slap in the face to all of our hard-working producers.

Going to be a heck of a learning curve. Helping the agricultural community recover from the biggest natural disasters in history, handling the avian influenza outbreak that is threatening our poultry industry, dealing with a crisis in meat processing, managing ongoing threats from climate change, supporting producers who are facing unprecedented inflation in an industry with very slim margins to begin with..... to name a few of the challenges our new Minister will have to face all with one of the lowest budgets of any ministry. I wish her the best of luck but I hope she's got a lot of support around her.

Best of wishes in your new position

Congrats to Pam, cool to see a Fraser Valley based ag minister but also so sad to see Lana reassigned . I have no doubt she will do an amazing job in her new role.

Will be missed by #meiernation

Bryce Rashleigh

Nooooooo!

Lana did a shit job and now we have a minister with no farming background at all. Aren’t we lucky..

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Flower farm meets growing demand

Sustainable methods used on Enderby farm

Blumen Fields Flower Farm owner Nadine Charlton has transformed five acres of her 54-acre property east of Enderby into a prolific garden of blooms that she sells at the local farmers market and to florists throughout the North Okanagan. Jackie Pearase

August 1, 2021 byJackie Pearase

ENDERBY – Operating a flower farm is a dream come true for Nadine Charlton, even if it’s not all sunshine and roses.

Charlton began Blumen Fields Flower Farm on Mabel Lake Road, six minutes east of Enderby, in 2018, one year after purchasing the 54-acre property with husband Chris and her parents.

The farm fulfills Charlton’s passion for sustainability and provides an outlet for her creative talent, honed over 20 years as an interior designer.

The farm has literally grown up around the family as colourful blooms and foliage slowly replaced a five-acre field that sat fallow for at least 20 years.

Growing up on a grain farm in northern Alberta, Charlton is no stranger to hard work but transforming five acres into a working flower farm over the past five years using no-till techniques and natural pest and disease control methods has been an eye-opener.

“This is more work than I think anyone could have imagined it would be,” she says. “I grow over 450 varieties of flowers … and every one has different requirements for everything – from seeding to fertilizing to when to harvest to the bugs that go with it. It’s a lot to try and manage.”

She uses no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides and the soil is remediated via occultation using black silage tarps.

“While the crop dies down, the micro-organisms then come up to eat the crop and produce a healthier soil,” she says. “I don’t have to worry about any compaction by doing that. I don’t have to bring in extra amendments, which is very important to me.”

Portions of the field not yet under cultivation are cover-cropped in fall rye, with Charlton taking over sections as required. She lays out the fields using the architectural design program AutoCAD, a tool familiar from her work as an interior designer.

“I knew that I wanted to increase every year but I’m definitely just letting the market dictate how much I’m increasing,” she notes. “I map out how many of each plant I think I’m going to need for the following year based on how many stems they put up and then I’ll determine how many I need and then it comes to working with AutoCAD to put them in rows.”

She grows all her annuals and most of her perennials from seed and starts the shrubbery as bare-root plants.

As a master gardener with an eye for design, Charlton looks for unique, trendy and colourful blooms and foliage.

The field is alive in colour and texture that includes perennials, thousands of annuals planted successionally to ensure blooms throughout the summer, rows of peonies, lilies and roses in a rainbow of colours, different grasses and shrubs.

Charlton endured a number of setbacks including a wind storm in the first year that took out a large tree providing the only shade for her hydrangeas. Hungry deer necessitated taller fencing.

This winter, she lost the eucalyptus she had overwintering for the past three years.

Although mild with little snow, the winter also wrought havoc on her roses, taking out a large portion of the 500 plants that are the bread-and-butter of weddings.

“They take about three years before they start producing. I’ve got this cost in the ground that I’m waiting on. I cut from them fabulously last year and then a lot of them, probably about 60% to 70%, were wiped out this year. It’s a big deal,” she says.

She also encountered a mite that destroyed about 300 white delphinium seedlings within a week while not touching any of those planted at the same time in an adjacent row.

She called the BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, which took samples.

“At this point, they think it was the mite but mites are not supposed to kill the plant,” she says, noting that mites typically prey on other insects. “They can’t figure it out.”

She is currently awaiting results from a mite expert in Ontario.

Charlton takes a hands-on approach to dealing with pests that threaten her very lucrative dahlia crop.

“There’s about three or four bugs that just love to ravage dahlias and the only way I can organically keep them as a perfect flower is to place a little organza bag on them while they’re still in bud,” she says. “The flower then opens in the organza bag the bugs can’t get into. Anything left is devoured or stained or bitten.”

The learning curve rose sharply last spring when the pandemic hit and weddings were cancelled.

Most of Charlton’s spring flowers went into the compost but the year was not as bad as expected.

“It turned out that as COVID went on and on and on and people were stuck in their houses, people wanted flowers in their houses. That’s the same reason houseplants took off.”

Charlton sells to about 45 florists and floral designers from Salmon Arm to Penticton. She also does wedding packages for venues and sells at the local farmers market, her farm gate and to a limited number of subscribers.

“I have 20 subscriptions right now. I’m careful to keep it at a pretty exclusive number because I sell to so many florists, I need to be careful that I am always kind of managing inventory in both directions.”

Providing only locally grown, in-season flowers can be difficult when up against a market inundated by flowers grown and shipped across the world.

She says her clients continue to use her flowers because she can provide blooms too delicate to ship and her flowers simply last longer.

“Most flowers that are coming from around the world have been cut for at least a week before it will ever get to a florist. Most are closer to two weeks. You can only expect so much from a flower,” Charlton says. “Mine gets harvested one day and it’s at the florist the next day. The amount of time it’s got for the vase life for the client is vastly different.”

Work to prove the reliability and quality of her flowers has paid off for Charlton in the form of a loyal clientele.

Floral designer Sarah Keegstra of Kaye Fleur in Vernon has used Charlton’s fresh and dried flowers for almost three years in each of the approximately 15 weddings she does annually.

She says Charlton’s sustainable approach to farming is an extra draw for her customers and allows her to elevate her designs.

“Nadine’s flowers are so gorgeous and really vast in variety. She is always growing and expanding her flower field to include new textures and all kinds of colour ranges,” Keegstra adds. “She truly is one of the best in the business.”

Anxious to keep and grow her client base, Charlton is constantly working to stretch her season.

She currently harvests until October, plants her first seeds in mid-December, and harvests her first tulips in mid-January.

“I’m scheming on how to get flowers for those (missing) months. I would like to be able to provide fresh flowers all year long that is still not flown in, they’re still locally grown. That’s my goal. Now I’m at about nine months.”

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