Severe storms over the past in the western Canadian region of Okanagan have dashed any hopes of a bumper stonefruit crop and are estimated to have caused millions of dollars' worth of damage, according to a report published by CBC News.
BC Tree Fruits, the marketing arm of the grower-owned Okanagan Tree Fruit Cooperative, had previously forecast this season's cherry crop would be around 8m lb (3,629 tonnes) and therefore well up on last years' crop, which came in at 4.6m lb (2,087 tonnes).
However, that expectation is now set to be revised, with forecasts for other crops such as peaches and nectarines also set to be downgraded.
Orchardist Greg Norton told CBC that high winds and heavy rain had damaged a significant amount of fruit on the trees over the past couple of months.
'If it's not every day it's every other day and at the most I don't think we've had a three-day stretch this year where we haven't had to deal with weather. I mean that's just so unusual.'
Norton said a thunderstorm at the end of week 29 had knocked around 15 per cent of peaches off the trees in his orchards, while around half of his cherry crop had split.
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