Image: BC Tree Fruits
Okanagan cherry farmers are on track for a record year, with the BC TreeFruits Cooperative predicting a 12 million pound harvest for 2018.
BC Tree Fruits says the weather has been “ideal” so far during the growing season, adding to the boom from the increasing acreage in the valley being given over to cherries.
“Mother nature served our growing regions with ideal weather conditions through bloom into the post-bloom period, which has resulted in a lot of fruit on the trees,” says BC Tree Fruits marketing manager Chris Pollock.
Okanagan cherries are becoming increasingly popular on the international market, with demand from countries like China driving fruit growers to give more of their land over to the fruit.
“We could plant every single acre of agricultural land in Kelowna with late-season cherries and still have people asking for them, that’s how much demand there is,” Sukhpaul Bal, the president of the BC Cherry Association has said.
Fred Steele, the president of the BC Fruit Growers Association, has a similar assessment. He says “there is such demand for B.C. cherries of the right size that the Chinese market is almost never-ending.”
He added that, with international markets opening up, “they’re going to by flying cherries out of Kelowna to China and other parts of the world within the next few years.”
The predicted 12 million pounds of cherries this year matches what BC Tree Fruits had predicted for 2017. Last year, however, the harvest came in a little over 10 million pounds, after weather challenges stunted the crop.
BC Tree Fruits says Okanagan shoppers will begin seeing local cherries in stores by the end of June.
BC Tree Fruits is also anticipating strong peach, nectarine, prune, plum and table grape crops this year, with volumes either slightly up or similar to 2017.
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