Nova Scotia apple growers worried about their crops after extremely dry season

The Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association chats about the ongoing dry conditions as apple harvest time approaches.

Concerns are growing for farmers in Nova Scotia after an excessively dry season in the province, and with a lack of significant rain in the forecast the worry is only increasing.

According to Emily Lutz with the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers’ Association, apple growers in the province are particularly worried as they have missed most of the rain the province has seen.

“Most of the apple orchards in Nova Scotia are concentrated in the Annapolis Valley which has really been left out of all the major showers that this province has seen,” said Lutz.

“So still seeing dry conditions, still seeing problems with the crop, very small sized fruit, apples particularly. Peaches and pears were also impacted.”

Lutz says the concerns for fruit growers are real as they must meet very specific standards for their fruit to sell.

“When we’re selling apples, they need to be a certain size to be marketable so anything under that size or doesn’t have the right amount of color on the fruit is really hard to sell so farmers are faced with a very tough situation,” she says.

“Do you pick it and hope there’s a market for that fruit or do you simply leave it on the tree? And how do you manage that when you have a crew and you have a packer who’s expecting fruit to come through their door?”

Lutz adds farmers also have a concern for the health of their trees, as replacing a tree could mean years’ worth of potential crops being lost.

“Those trees that are brown and dry, will they come back next year, or will they need to be replaced? And when we’re talking about replacing those apple trees, you don’t just plant one and they give you fruit the next year, they take three, four, five years to reach full production,” she says.

Even if the trees produce this season, Lutz says the lack of rain means the trees are much weaker, and they may not make it through the winter months.

Lutz adds it’s already too late for the trees to come back this season, but some rain would be helpful in moderation.

“Really at this point slow and steady would be fine. A big dump would cause some problems I think for both this year’s crop and the storage crop going forward,” she says.

Despite the worries, Lutz confirmed there will be local apples for sale at the end of the season, but they may not be comparable to their usual sizes.

“There will be apples. There are some growers who have irrigation, who’ve got heavier soils and who’ve done a good job at withstanding this who’ve been lucky, so there will be apples, and there will be likely small apples, so I would just encourage consumers to not be deterred from buying a small apple. They fit better in your lunchbox,” she said.

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