Excellent apple harvest
Kirk Penton - Oct 18, 2018 - Biz Releases

Photo: Contributed

The Okanagan Valley’s apple harvest is almost complete, and it’s going to go down as an excellent one.

Chris Pollock, who serves as BC Tree Fruits’ marketing manager, said this year’s haul is looking remarkably strong with about a week of apple picking remaining.

“From a quality standpoint the fruit’s looking very good,” Pollock said. “We’re seeing the size of the fruit is larger than last year, and quality is a little better than last year as well. Overall we’re very happy with how the year has started, especially from a size and a quality standpoint.

“Last year from an overall volume standpoint we had a little more than we’re anticipating to have this year, but the quality wasn’t as good last year. So we’re very happy with the work that the growers put in over the spring and the summer to thin the trees and make sure that we’re going to get the size of each individual apple larger than average.”

Pollock said the reason for the bountiful harvest is because of perfect weather—hot days and cool nights—and the smoke layer that blanketed the region in August.

“While we don’t want to see that from a general standpoint, it definitely helped our fruit, because it actually protected the apples from the sun and it actually protected them from things like sunburn and really helps control the temperatures and control the sunlight that the fruit was being hit by,” Pollock said. “We’re seeing the results of that in terms of the size of the fruit and definitely the colour of the fruit.”

BC Tree Fruits has been able to put between 80 and 88 apples in their boxes that are normally intended for 100 pieces, which indicates this year’s larger average size.

B.C.’s harvest volume can’t compete with that of Washington state, but Pollock said local fruit gets plenty of support in Western Canada and that means business is good.

“When consumers go into a retail store, they want to see BC Tree Fruits apples,” Pollock said. “They want to see products that are grown in B.C. and grown in Canada.

“While we can’t control overall volumes in how we compare to our neighbours in the south, what we do rely on is that consumer support, and we do get it, and we do appreciate it, and our growers really appreciate it.”

Pink Lady and Fuji apples are the last varieties that will come off the trees in the next week before the heavy evening frost arrives.


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