The BC Cherry Association held its annual general meeting in Kelowna on February 23. While the industry continues to expand its access to international markets, with last year witnessing the first official exports to Korea, domestic growing conditions are a concern. “We saw damage from the freeze of late December 2022 and then 30°C spring …
BC Cherry Association
Cherry growers weigh trade complaint
BC cherry growers took a beating on price last season as cheap California and Washington fruit flooded the market. But whether or not the industry seeks an anti-dumping order is up in the air, with greater investment in domestic marketing possibly yielding greater benefits. “Prices really crashed last July,” explains BC Fruit Growers Association general …
Cherry promotion promising
A renewed focus on domestic markets got off to a promising start this summer as the BC Cherry Association declared Canadian Cherry Month from July 15 to August 15. While the organization has been attempting to increase domestic Canadian cherry consumption for a couple years, this year the association hired marketing firm t2Marketing International to …
New rules for pesticide applications
KELOWNA – New regulations under the federal Pest Control Products Act now restrict the practice of tank-mixing to only products that are labelled specifically for mixing. “Under the old regulations, products could be tank-mixed if they were both labelled as registered to be used on a crop and did not specify otherwise,” provincial pesticide specialist …
Orchard sector pilots new job-matching website
KELOWNA – Fruit growers who employ temporary workers each summer may find a phone app being trialed this season will help fill the gap left by the retirement of long-time BC Fruit Growers Association liaison Ron Forrest. “Over the last 15 years, Ron and other BCFGA team members have welcomed, provided safety and orientation training, …
Cherry virus survey proposed
A new industry-led task force hopes to survey cherry growers this summer to ensure a disease that devastated BC’s cherry industry decades ago doesn’t return. Kootenay growers first reported little cherry disease in 1933. By 1946, almost every tree in the region was infected by the virus that causes the disease, which results in under-sized …