Stock photo (Dreamstime 42364816)

By Liam Verster

Weather and Local Fruit

Wildfire smoke having mixed impacts on Okanagan fruit

Aug 6, 2021 | 5:00 AM

VERNON, B.C. -The smoky conditions from the wildfires burning throughout the province are having mixed impacts on tree fruit in the Okanagan.

Glen Lucas, the general manager for Local 1 of the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association, said the smoke isn’t actually a bad thing for some fruit like apples.

“The strength of the sun on the fruit would be less, so there would be less sun burn,” said Lucas

He adds the heat wave in June has been the biggest issue for Okanagan fruit growers this year and caused problems mainly with early-season cherries. He said thousands of crop insurance ‘Notices of Loss’ have already been filed this summer.

“That’s a very high number for us because, say there were 600 commercial farms, some of them multiple lots and multiple varieties, so they might have a claim on apples and a claim on cherries for example, so that 1,000 ‘Notices of Loss’ is a relatively high number.”

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He says the heat wave’s damage to early season cherries marks the third year in a row that cherries in the Okanagan have been impacted by weather.

Lucas adds the smoke won’t have any impact on the actual taste of fruits this season, though it has had an impact on attracting and maintaining workers.

“We’re just ramping up cherry harvest and that heavy smoke was tough to work in, but we also have a worker shortage. Despite some of the crop being damaged, we still don’t have enough workers.

“So that’s been difficult as well because we have fewer domestic workers, Canadian workers, coming out to the farm to help harvest. At one of our campsites, we have about one third of the workers staying over that we usually do, and at the other one, there’s noticed reduction over there too. People are scrambling for labour, it’s smoky, it’s really not a great time.”

He adds while the smoke is a bit of a hindrance, he’s not concerned about the fires damaging the trees because the orchards are so well irrigated, they never burn.

“Basically what we see is the forest fire burn right up to the edge of the orchard. It might singe the outside trees, but no orchard has caught fire because it’s too moist. It’s kind of like a barrier that the fire stops at.”

The only issue to farms and orchards is if buildings catch, but according to Lucas, that’s a rare occurrence.

Lucas adds the impact of the season probably won’t be reflected back on the consumer, though the producers’ bottom lines may take a bit of a hit due to the conditions this summer.