Fires commonly affect the North American west coast in the summer and this year’s was clearly no different. B.C. in particular has been affected since late June by the wide-scale blazes, largely due to a combination of long stretches of dry heat followed by heavy wind.
“2017 is shaping up to be one of the worst forest fires seasons in British Columbia in history and that’s distracting many people as homes and livelihoods are put in danger,” Brian Faulkner of Delta, BC-based BCfresh. “We’ve had some of our growers, not their primary facilities, but some secondary properties and growing areas outside the province’s Lower Mainland have been affected.”
The role of smoke?
This includes the heavily-hit interior of B.C.—Kamloops, the Okanagan and southern interior have been hit the hardest while the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley had quite a bit of smoke until recently. “I’ve heard reports of some crops with smoke damage and it’s certainly very hazy. We’re not sure how the haze and the heavily filtered sunlight will affect the long-term growth and yield of some of those areas,” says Faulkner. “It has not affected corn so far but it could have an affect on other long-term storage crops such as potatoes, cabbage and beets. A few BCfresh growers are concerned about their crops planted close to the wild fires to make sure they can keep the water on it while playing it safe at the same time.”
Sizing of fruit affected
Meanwhile Kam Chuhan of Abbotsford, B.C.-based FreshPack Okanagan Fruit LTD. says some growers are wondering if the smoke elicited from the fires helped counterbalance the heavy heat that’s plagued the region.
“Some people have a theory that the smoke blocked the sun a little bit and kind of helped offset that heat,” he says. “But the heat damage was already done and affected the sizing of the fruit and everything came all at once.”
Chuhan says the fire’s pre-cursor, that thick heat, is what really hurt crops this year. “It affected everything from cherries to apples to peaches and nectarines,” he says. “Blueberry crops were down 40 per cent this year. Everybody’s having a tough time from the middle of Washington to throughout B.C.”
For more information:
Brian Faulkner
BCfresh
Tel: 1-604.952.3232
brian@bcfresh.ca
www.bcfresh.ca
Kam Chauhan
FreshPack Okanagan Fruit LTD.
Tel: +1-778-552-2737
kam@fofltd.ca
www.fofltd.ca