It was a weird fruit-growing season in the Okanagan, but despite the challenges, BC Tree Fruits says the apple crop is looking good.
Hank Markgraf, Field Services Manager for BC Tree Fruits, says the harvest - which is about 50% complete - started a little late.
"We're three weeks behind because we had a cool, wet spring that started our season off, and although we had a very hot summer that went on for a long time, it never caught up so we're behind where we were last year," he says.
Markgraf also says despite all the speculation - the wildfire smoke in the valley thi summer did not affect fruit crops - he says the apples won't taste smoky. In fact. he says tree fruits and grapes - wine grapes and table grapes - do not absorb smoke.
"And in one way, if we didn't have the smoke cover - and I know everybody hated it - it was a bit of a saviour for us because if it would have been 70 days of full, sunny hot days - we would have more sun-burned fruit than we had. So as much as we hated it, it was actually a pretty good thing," he says.
Markgraf says this year's total tree fruit crop will be slightly larger than 2016's at 4 to 4.5-million boxes.