BC Apples
By all accounts, the provincial tree fruit replant program is proving to be a resounding success in 2018, its fifth year of operation in BC.
In the fall of 2014, the BC Ministry of Agriculture (BCMA) launched a seven-year, $8.4 million program to help tree fruit growers replant existing orchards with newer, higher value varieties. The program is administered by the BC Fruit Growers Association (BCFGA) on behalf of the government and includes apples, pears, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, and plums.
“We are seeing really nice rejuvenation in the industry,” says Carl Withler, BCMA tree fruit and grape industry specialist. “Growers are removing less profitable varieties like Red and Golden Delicious (and) I think it has also encouraged the industry to move to higher density systems.”
He says the old 20x20 and the 20x14 plantings are coming out.
“We are seeing really tight, compact, manageable 2X10’s which should transfer to higher bin numbers per acre,” says Withler. “We want to move from an average of 35-40 bins per acre to 50 and the top guys want to be at 80.”
“The target market in our industry is that beautiful 88 size (8.2cm or just over 3in) and this is setting the industry up for that,” says Withler.
Apples have led the way with an average of 200 acres a year being replanted. BC’s own Ambrosia is the most popular variety being replanted for apples, followed by Honeycrisp and Galas. Some 85 acres of cherries on average have gone in each year (you can replace apples with cherries or cherries with cherries). Sentennial and Stacatto, two later harvest varieties developed at AAFC Summerland, have been the cherries of choice.
Replants of peaches have seen an average of 13 acres a year, with four acres a year for nectarines, and three for pears. A 1.75 acre planting of Apricots was funded in 2015 with 1.1 acres of plums in 2015 and .35 acre in 2016.
Replanting is not cheap. Finished apple trees for replant can run $10.00 a tree, but that’s only part of the cost. Old trees must be cut, stumps torn out, roots pulled and the land fumigated or left fallow to reduce pests left over from old plantings. There are labor costs for the trees to be planted with the post and wire trellis that supports high-density plantings and irrigation has to be installed. The industry average is currently running at $25,000 to $30,000 per acre. And there is also lost opportunity cost, as the land does not produce while the trees are getting established.
Currently, apple replant funding is $3.50 per finished tree to a maximum eligibility of $7,625 per acre (2,178 trees per acre). Soft fruit and pear funding is $3.50 per finished tree to a maximum of $2800 per acre (800 trees per acre). Grafting and budding over is supported at $2.50 a tree to a maximum of $5000 per acre for apple plantings and $2000 per acre for soft fruit and pears. Growers can also apply for a $300 rebate for bioassay testing.
Withler says some 130 qualified applications have been funded each year. “Growers will apply for more than one orchard location, so it’s about 100 growers a year,” he explains. The majority are in the Okanagan, but last year saw six successful applications from the Creston area and 12 from the Similkameen.
The program is popular. The number of applications in the first year, 2014, caught the Ministry off guard and funds had to be shifted forward from later years in the program. Summerland Varieties Corporation pitched in $298,000, which the government matched. In June of 2016, the BCMA provided another $1 million making the total value of the program $9.4 million.
“The newly announced Tree Fruit Competitiveness Fund should provide money to fully support the program through to the end in 2021,” Withler says.
BCFGA General Manager Glen Lucas notes that a change in the criteria has led to a marked improvement in the quality of the program. “The first year we accepted applications on a first come, first served basis and frankly there were some applications that weren’t of a very high quality,” says Lucas.
In the fall of 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture instituted a merit–based Replant Program Project scoring criteria. Grower applications are ranked on variety selection, for value and location, a planting plan, soil analysis, a cash flow projection, and site mapping. Growers must also have the plan signed off by an Agrologist and a Horticultural Review Committee scores the applications.
Lucas says he feels the government is leading the industry toward better orchard planning. “Putting the replant plans together can be a hassle, but I think they put the growers in a better place.”
Growers plant bare land.
Records show that in 2005, there were 11,800 acres planted in pome fruits across the Okanagan. That acreage continued to decline over the next nine years at an average of 450 acres a year, down to a low of 8,440 acres in 2014.
“The trend reversed in 2015,” notes BCFGA president Pinder Dhaliwal. “For the first time in 10 years more fruit trees went into the ground than came out.” While replant dollars only apply to land that is currently in trees or has been bare no more than 5 years, growers are choosing to plant new land on their own initiative.
The BC Ministry of agriculture does not currently have records of new plantings across the province, but Carl Withler, tree fruit and grape industry specialist says they are “substantial” in the hundreds of acres per year in the last several years. While cherries are the most popular fruit for bare ground plantings, there are new acreages of apples going in as well.
In addition to the Okanagan, there are bare land plantings going into the Creston valley, and Kamloops cattlemen have a new neighbour. An Okanagan grower has acquired land in Pritchard along the Thompson River for a new cherry orchard.
