Manitoba berry producers 'play it by ear' after rounds of severe weather
It's almost time for berry picking in Manitoba, but some berry producers say they're waiting to see how this season bears fruit given a late spring start and recent wild weather.
Angie Cormier, executive director of the Prairie Fruit Growers Association, says the province's berry producers are faring differently in light of this week's storms.
Producers in towns such as Stonewall and Swan River, which received torrential downpours this week, were the hardest hit, she said.
"We don't know the extent of the damage," said Cormier, who co-owns Cormier’s Berry Patch in La Salle, Man. "I think we'll find out in the next couple of weeks in those areas."
Berry blossoms don't like intense heat or excess moisture, and while some plants may recover, she says there might be some lost fruit.
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"There is no provincial insurance for loss of production or berries or fruit in Manitoba," Cormier said.
Producers concerned about losses should see whether they're eligible for support under the province's recently announced disaster fund, or through AgriStability, a federal program that works similarly to crop insurance, she said.
Cormier says Manitobans should expect to be out in the field with their berry baskets in the next two to four weeks.
"Haskap berries will be ready here in the next couple of weeks, followed by strawberries, saskatoons, raspberries and sour cherries," she said. "Hopefully, in the next two to four weeks, we get some sun and things kind of perk up a bit."
The owner of a saskatoon berry orchard just outside Winnipeg says some of his crops will be waterlogged for a while.
Brent Wolfe, who co-owns the Purple Berry Orchard in the rural municipality of Rosser, said they weren't hit too badly by rain this week, but it's hard to take stock of the damage after his saskatoon orchard outside Stonewall received 10 inches of rain.
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He says strawberries are more likely to be impacted by recent downpours than saskatoons, as they grow lower to the ground.
"It's definitely wet out there, but we haven't seen any damage from it yet. We're still waiting for some water to go down," Wolfe said Friday.
"There's lots of water sitting in it right now, but the plants are six to eight feet tall, so they're quite a bit above that water."
With harvest about a month away, Wolfe said "everything's still kind of up in the air."
"We will have to play it by ear," he said. "There could be more chances of diseases, possibly just with lots of water out there, and humidity, but that would be about it, I think, for right now."
This article, written by Ozten Shebahkeget, with files from Julie Buckingham, was originally published for CBC News.
Thumbnail image credit to Josh Crabb/CBC News.