Okanagan Gala apples were having a tough time developing recently. Overnight temperatures were making it hard for the apples to develop their bright colouring, which decreases quality and profit for local farmers.
Thankfully, this week those fears have subsided.
“Last week, we were seeing temperatures still hovering around 20 degrees Celsius, and that’s just too warm,” said Pinder Dhaliwal, President of the BC Fruit Growers’ Association. “You need cool nights and warm days. Not blazing hot, but warm days and that’s perfect for getting the apple to size up and getting that red colour to trigger at nighttime.”
The Gala apple harvest will happen around the end of the month, with plenty of time for the apples to fully develop. Local Ginger Gold and Sunrise apple varieties are already being picked and sold.
Like many of the issues affecting British Columbians this summer, wildfires and smoke are at least partially to blame for the higher temperatures. Dhaliwal explained, “Last week there was a long blanket of smoke and what happens is, it gets warm in the day and the hot air gets trapped so it can’t escape at night.”
But, the smoke also has a silver lining(pun intended). “They were predicting very hot temperatures. 40 degrees Celsius, 36 Celsius. What the smoke did do is, it did block the harmful (UV) rays that would’ve sun scalded the apples. So, in that sense, it protected the apples from having burn marks,” added Dhaliwal.
Smoke has now been a concern for farmers in back to back busy wildfire years. But Dhaliwal says it’s not the only concern for future crops.
“I think the biggest issue coming in the near future is water. Every year, other than smoke, what we’ve got is very hot temperatures. The tree shuts down around (30 degrees Celsius). Lets’ say we didn’t have this smoke and we had 40 degree temperatures? That would’ve cooked a lot of exposed fruit on the top of the tree canopy. And you need more water to keep the fields irrigated and cooled. If we have a low snowfall and we’re short on water. Definitely there’s a weather pattern change. Every year we’re going through this heat wave here. Last (farming season) we went a hundred days without rain.”