As fruit buds swell, B.C. farmers hit by 2024 deep freeze hope for better harvest

A cherry orchard is seen from the air in Kelowna, B.C., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Peter Simonsen says buds on the peach trees at his farm in Naramata, B.C., are already starting to swell early.

But that makes him nervous.

“They seem healthy and good, but I’m a little worried, because it’s been very similar to last year,” he said, referring to the warm spell last winter that preceded a catastrophic cold snap that decimated crops across the Okanagan and elsewhere in B.C.

“And if you look at the fruit buds, they are starting to swell a little bit. They are breaking their dormancy, which is way too early for that to be happening.”

This week marks one year since the deep freeze that sent temperatures plummeting to about -30 C in some fruit-growing regions.

With plants already budding because of the previous warmth, a year’s worth of crops, including peaches and nectarines, were wiped out, along with the vast majority of cherries, and grapes used in B.C. wines. The loss cost hundreds of millions of dollars and left many farmers scrambling to stay afloat.

Farmers now say they’re crossing their fingers for 2025, but with the end of winter still two months away, it’s too soon to know for sure if the weather will co-operate.

Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says a “hint” of colder weather is coming for the Okanagan over the next week or so but it’s not forecast to be nearly as cold or as prolonged as it was last year.

Proctor said temperatures could dip to -15 over the weekend in the region but that the cold won’t last long, adding that the weather pattern is moving farther east than it did this time last year.

Simonsen, who is also president of the BC Fruit Growers' Association, said he’s hopeful for a harvest this year but adds that any sort of extreme cold over the next few months could cause damage if buds are not dormant.

He said the closer it gets to spring, the more sensitive fruit trees are to temperature.

“Last year it was -27, which was terrible. But, if we have one (cold snap) in February or March, if they keep breaking dormancy, it only has to go to -10 or -15 or something, to have damage.”

Alan Gatzke, a third-generation farmer about 100 kilometres north in Oyama, B.C., lost his entire crop of peaches and nectarines last year, and about 85 per cent of cherries.

He said he’s also started to see some buds beginning to swell but remains optimistic that 2025 will yield healthy crops.

“Cautiously optimistic would be a good description of how I’m feeling, because the orchard looks great right now. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a good flush of buds out there, so we anticipate a full crop, if nothing goes wrong,” he said.

Gatzke said that ideally the weather in the region would get slightly colder overnight to slow the process of buds waking up.

“Minus five at night and plus five at day would be perfect right now. But we haven’t been getting the minus fives,” he said.

“I see in the forecast that we might be getting down to minus eight or nine, and that would be a good thing, just to slow things down for a little bit so that bloom happens when there is no frost.”

The cold snap also destroyed almost all of grapes used to make B.C. wines.

The B.C. government responded by committing extra funding of up to $70 million to replant and strengthen fruit orchards and vineyards.

Michael Bartier, owner and winemaker at the Bartier Brothers Winery near Oliver, B.C., said the vineyard lost all of its fruit last year and about half of its vines were killed.

He said this year looks like it is going to be “an awful lot better” than what they went through in 2024.

“We have those buds, they’re there. They look healthy right now. We haven’t had any cold events this year, and there’s nothing in the forecast that looks even remotely alarming. So we’re almost through the danger period,” he said.

In Kelowna, Jennifer Deol, co-owner of There and Back Again Farms, said she hasn’t seen buds developing on her peach trees yet, but like so many others, she’s holding her breath that a dramatic cold snap won’t happen again.

“We know with climate change, weather events are just becoming more frequent and severe, and their impact to farming is also becoming more frequent and severe. So we are cautiously optimistic, but anything can happen. We’re still in winter,” she said.

The devastation of last year left many small farms like Deol’s struggling to make ends meet.

She said they have deferred payment on the farm for the last three years because they are not making enough money. They’ve also decided to put the apple orchard portion of their farm up for sale.

“We’re operating at a loss, and I have to work a full-time job on top of farming just to pay for our food, pay for our electricity,” she said.

She said last year the farm lost all of its peaches and cherries and 80 per cent of its table grapes, and were left to rely on vegetable sales to stay afloat.

“If we can just have a decent year, it can kind of fill up our account again. But we barely made it, and we only made it because of community support and really trying to advocate for farming,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 15, 2025.

Ashley Joannou, The Canadian Press