Prunings
Corporation, Keith Carlson, was presented with an award of merit at the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association annual general meeting in January. Carlson has served in a variety of positions with many industry organizations during the 22 years he has been growing cherries on his 40-acre orchard. This year’s media award was presented to CHBC TV news reporter Barry McDivitt, for his coverage of the tree fruit industry...
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ong-time Summerland cherry grower and president of the Okanagan Plant Improvement
improve cold storage air quality and conditions at its Osoyoos packinghouse... Meanwhile, Stoneboat Vineyards
Keith Carlson
Agriculture minister Norm Letnick and Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan announced federal-provincial funding from the Tree Fruit Market and Infrastructure Initiative in January for five projects involving the tree fruit industry. The BCFGA received $19,200 to look at cherry stem moisture as a method to predict shelf life. “It would be a sort of best- before dating,” explains general manager Glen Lucas, with the aim to provide information to growers and packinghouses that could lead to quality standards for cherries. He said testing stem moisture is relatively simple and testing for pressure and sugars is also not complex, so such testing could be done on-site at packing facilities. The BCFGA will hire a private researcher to do the work this summer. Coral Beach Farms in Lake Country received $35,000 for a software program to automate the sorting out of stemless cherries. That will add value by focusing on high- value markets that require stems, and will reduce the labour costs of sorting them by hand, explained owner David Geen. He said the new equipment was added last season to the optical sizer at the farm and it worked very well. It’s the first time it’s been used here. The Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association received $21,000 for two projects involving management of spotted wing drosophila. Cawston Cold Storage received $106,000 toward new storage technology which is more efficient and would extend the marketing season for organic apples by maximizing post- harvest storage quality. Jind Fruit Company received $26,000 to
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is receiving more than $125,000 from the feds to purchase and install new wine processing equipment at its facility in Oliver. Announced in mid-February by Okanagan Coquihalla MP Dan Albas, the funds will be used to purchase new sparkling wine processing equipment that will enable the company to produce a new type of wine not currently made in the province. Using the Charmat method, wines will undergo carbonation through a second fermentation in stainless steel autoclaves, resulting in smaller, longer-lasting bubbles. The project is supported through the Agricultural Innovation Program, a $50-million initiative to help Canadian producers commercialize new products, technologies, and processes. Stoneboat intends to increase sales by entering a domestic market currently dominated by foreign producers and facilitate the company’s access to international markets through exports to China. “We wanted to create a fresh, approachable, fruit-forward sparkling wine, similar to Italian Proseccos. The style is a perfect match for the grapes we grow in the Okanagan,” said Stoneboat proprietor Lanny Martiniuk. “The technical aspects of production are intensive, and the capital required is very significant for a winery of our size. We are fortunate there is government support for projects like ours, and with our new equipment we believe that we
can create a product that is every bit as delicious as import wines made with the same technology...” Troy and Sara Harker of Cawston have been named British Columbia’s Outstanding Young Farmers for 2013. They received their award from Lieutenant-Governor Judy Guichon and Canadian OYF president Derek Janzen in front of more than 400 people at the annual B.C. Agriculture Gala in Abbotsford, Jan. 23. Troy is the fifth generation Harker to raise fruit and vegetables on the family farm established in the 1880s... The CanadaGAP Food Safety Manuals have been updated for 2013. Fruit and Vegetable Manual, Version 6.1 covers field/orchard/vineyard- grown crops (i.e., combined vegetable, leafy vegetable and cruciferae, potato, small fruit, and tree and vine fruit). Greenhouse Manual, Version 6.1 covers greenhouse-grown vegetables. CanadaGAP is a food safety certification program for companies that produce, pack and store fruits and vegetables. It is designed to help implement effective food safety procedures within fresh produce operations. The revised manuals have been reviewed and the changes approved by Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The documents are available as a free download at:
www.canadagap.ca/ “The requirements remain largely unchanged for 2013,” said CanadaGAP technical manager Amber Bailey, adding that “the majority of revisions to the manuals are editorial in nature, to clarify or further explain existing requirements...”
British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Spring 2013
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