ARLINGTON, P.E.I. - Strawberry crops weren’t the only victims of the June frost, as Island apple growers are also seeing the damage done.
“In my 25 years of apple growing, we’ve never experienced a season like this before. We’ve never experienced such a damaging freeze in June,” said Barry Balsom, owner of Arlington Orchards.
Balsom is one of several apple growers on P.E.I. and the Maritimes whose crop was affected by the late season freeze on June 4.
“We did see some effect from the frost. At the same time, there were some varieties that hadn’t been hit at all. We probably lost about 40 to 50 per cent of the crop. That’s a big hit but there were some varieties that weren’t hit at all. We’ll have a good bumper crop of Honeycrisp, and a large crop of peaches that didn’t get hit … I’m still shaking my head over that,” he said with a laugh.
“But varieties like our Paula Reds and Jersey Macs are going to be extremely light this year. We’re also down on our MacIntosh and Cortlands. But having said that, we’ve made some changes to our business model. This will be the first time in 12 years that we won’t be shipping tractor-trailers of apples off of P.E.I. So, we’re going to keep the production on P.E.I. to look after the local apple packing lines and keep the local market satisfied... mostly.”
“That’s the sure thing about apple farming, there’s no sure thing about apple farming.”
-Barry Balsom
Balsom expects the apple U-pick to open on Sept. 15.
“That’s about a little more than a week later than usual, but some of our early varieties are lighter right now.”
He said a lot of things had to go wrong to put apple growers in the situation they’re in now.
The last time it got that cold, -2.3 to -2.4 C, in June was in 1913, he explained.
“And four or five days leading up to the freeze we’re hitting temperatures of 21 to 22, which really forced the blooms along.”
The apple blossoms are designed to attract bees for pollination, allowing the fruit to grow without the presence of the flower.
“There’s the male, the pollen, and the female which is right in the base of the flower. So, when there is a frost, if you cut into the base of the green and it’s white, you know she is OK. But when you start to see a lot of brown you know she was damaged or killed outright.”
He says the frost wasn’t a complete negative as it naturally thinned the fruit out in order for the trees and blossoms to sustain a good crop.
Balsom also noted he’s never seen a hail storm in the middle of a thunderstorm in August.
“Thankfully we weren’t hit by that at all. We were missed completely. But we did have a delivery truck coming back from one of our stores. Now the top of the truck is dented because of the hail. It was very severe.”
He added, “That’s the sure thing about apple farming, there’s no sure thing about apple farming.”
