Market Watch
Prices up significantly even though producers hit hard by spring frost and summer hail havoc.
rowers were forced to deal with bouts of inclement weather again this year, but while crops were down compared to 2012, prices were up.
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Chris Pollock, marketing and sales for the B.C. Tree Fruits Co-operative, said this year the apple crop produced 2,000,000 cartons, whereas in 2012 a total of 3,000,000 cartons were processed through the co-op.
“Primarily it’s hail damage that hit us in various regions and various times throughout the bloom and harvest time,” reported Pollock. “Having said that, movement in our pricing has been very solid to start the year off. We’ve sold just over 446,000 cartons to date. That is down 10 per cent from last year at this time, but again the reason that’s down is because we have less fruit.” Pollock said if there had been a yield similar to last year they could probably have sold more fruit. “Pricing, overall – across all grades, across all sizes and across all varieties – is actually up eight per cent from last year,” he said. “So that’s very positive from a grower’s perspective.”
Compared to 2011, apple prices are up 24 per cent.
Pollock said that is a significant percentage increase because last year was a great one for the co-op in terms of pricing and returns to its growers.
“To be eight per cent higher than last year is pretty good.” Cherry production was also hampered due to weather conditions particularly in the southern part of the Okanagan in the Oliver and Osoyoos areas, which were hit by a frost during the cherry blooming season.
Although fewer cherries were available than in 2012, again the return was greater in 2013, said
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British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Winter 2013-14 7
By Scott Trudeau Positives, despite negative weather
Pollock. A total of more than 15,000 cartons of pears were sold this year which is an increase of nine per cent from 2012. Pricing also increased six per cent this year compared to last year.
Hank Markgraf, grower services manager with the co-op, also noted the weather factor in this year’s crops. All of the soft fruits were affected by frost and cold temperatures that struck during the apple blooming season.
“That definitely hit our southern growing region a lot worse than our central and north growing regions, although the central and north still felt an impact from hail,” he said. Vernon experienced hail during early July; in the Kelowna area, growers felt the wrath of one of the worst hailstorms Markgraf and many growers had ever witnessed. “That wiped out somewhere between 13,000 to 15,000 bins in a matter of minutes,” he said. Markgraf could recall only one other year – 1983 – in which a hailstorm struck so severely. “It shredded the fruit, there were no leaves on the trees; it shredded the bark and I’ve only ever seen that twice,” he said.
Smaller hailstorms followed
throughout the summer and into late September—which Markgraf said has never happened in the Okanagan.
“I’ve never, and I mean never, ever seen that before. where we’ve had hail late in September,” he said. As a result of the hailstorms, the co-op had teams of horticulturists working closely with growers in all its growing regions to address the difficulties caused by the hail. Markgraf said the harvest was going to be about what had been expected, but the hail had a significant impact on final numbers. “The good side of that is that prices are strong and we should be able to work through it,” he said. “Kudos to our growers for doing a fantastic job of getting through it because we have a lot of good fruit here at the packinghouse.” Markgraf said he’s looking forward to the 57th International Fruit Tree Association Annual Conference and Intensive Workshop being held in Kelowna Feb. 22 – 26. The event will feature guest speakers, education workshops, conference sessions and field tour and is expected to draw about 300 to 400 growers.
JAN 30 - FEB 1, 2014
Tradex Exhibition Centre (Abbotsford Airport) Abbotsford, BC
16TH ANNUAL
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