“The Ontario Craft Cider Marketing Fund (CCMF) is the single most impactful development for the Ontario craft and cider industry in over a decade,” said Jenifer Dean, Ontario Craft Cider Association (OCCA) chair. “The industry is in its infancy, and this fund will help it develop into one of Ontario’s most significant beverage alcohol industries.”

Why it matters: The program will stimulate long-term growth, enhance consumer craft cider awareness and accelerate Ontario craft cideries’ access to new market opportunities.

The OCCA is receiving up to $89,000 to expand the DrinkON Apples Certification, allowing consumers to identify which products are 100 per cent Ontario apples.

With approximately 979 apple growers and 16,000 acres of apple trees provincially supplying the craft cider sector, Brian Rideout, Ontario Apple Growers chair, said the drive to expand and highlight locally made craft ciders is positive.

The DrinkON apple logo marks a quality-made local craft cider, said Dean, and the CCMF will facilitate consumer cider education and sampling products possible at festivals, sampling events and visiting local cideries via the Ontario Craft Cider Trail.

By the end of October, every convenience, grocery and big-box store will sell cider, beer, wine and ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages.

“Ontario apples have given rise to award-winning Ontario craft cider,” said Janice Ruddock, OCCA executive director. “(We thank the province) for their vision in seeing the unlimited potential to cultivate a thriving Ontario craft cider industry.”

Ontario’s Small Cidery Program will provide grants of up to $220,000 to help cideries expand their facilities, purchase state-of-the-art equipment, and hire more staff to meet demand.

“We recognize the industry’s great potential for growth, and this investment is just one way we are ensuring its success, now and in the future,” said Rob Flack, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness.

The post Provincial funding adds sparkle to Ontario’s craft cider marketing appeared first on Farmtario.

Projects include collecting data on the climate impact of apple and tender fruit farming, developing a carbon calculator to reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions and developing superior, resilient fruit varieties.

Why it matters: Fruit growers must adapt to conditions within a changing climate.

The funding is part of the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership and was announced by Niagara Centre MP Vance Badeway.

In a May 10 press release, Badeway said improvements in tender fruit resiliency will benefit Ontario producers. In the same release, Ontario Tender Fruit Growers chair Phil Tregunno said that “by expanding production here at home, we’re also supporting the economic sustainability of our agriculture sector.

”We appreciate the government’s ongoing commitment to innovation for our domestic tree fruit industry by investing in this much- needed research.”

Ontario Tender Fruit Growers manager Sarah Marshall said in a follow-up interview that groups learned of the funding in late 2023.

“We’re just starting to get underway now, this spring,” she said. “We’re working with researchers on various aspects of the project, including the new variety development.”

Marshall said the projects are “all focused around climate change,” and the first step will be a life cycle analysis to provide a baseline.

“Then there’s the new variety development piece, which is concentrating more on climate change with the varieties we commercialize.”

This could include resistance to early spring frost as well as high summer heat.

“We’re getting more and more summers with high heat and difficulty getting to the fruit in time before it becomes too soft to market.”

Development of new varieties could take 10 to 15 years.

Lawrence MacAulay, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food, said he understands the challenges posed by changing weather.

“Climate change is making once-in-a-generation extreme weather events more common,” he said. “This project, which builds on past research projects we have proudly supported, will help our producers stay competitive, while reducing the carbon footprint of the sector.”

Marshall said the carbon calculator aspect will help growers understand the impacts of their production practices.

The post Apple and tender fruit growers receive $1.2 million appeared first on Farmtario.

Hurricane Fiona, tracking northward after carving a destructive path through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, could be one of the worst storms to hit Atlantic Canada in recent years.

Storms are not uncommon in the region and they typically cross over rapidly, but Fiona is expected to impact a very large area and bring extended periods of stormy weather, Canadian Hurricane Centre meteorologist Bob Robichaud said at a briefing.

By late Friday morning, Hurricane Fiona was about 970 km south of Halifax, moving north at 56 km/h with maximum sustained winds of 215 km/h, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

When it arrives in Nova Scotia on Saturday morning, Fiona is expected to make landfall as a powerful post-tropical storm bigger than Hurricane Juan in 2003 and stronger than Hurricane Dorian in 2019, Robichaud said.

Dorian had slammed though Halifax as an intense post-tropical storm, knocking down trees, cutting power, and blowing over a large construction crane.

“Where (Fiona) fits in the history books, we’ll have to make that determination after the fact but it is going to be certainly a historic, extreme event for Eastern Canada,” Robichaud said.

Fiona is expected to hit Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island, home to about 135,000 people, or 15 per cent of the province’s population, Environment Canada said on Friday.

A hurricane warning was in effect for most of central and eastern Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The eye will move across Nova Scotia later on Friday, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Saturday and over Labrador on Sunday.

Forecasters say areas close to its path could get up to eight inches of rain, while winds could damage buildings and cause utility outages, with storm surges swamping the coastlines.

Farmers in Nova Scotia have told local media they’re concerned also about the potential damage the storm may bring to crops, including corn and apples.

The country’s two largest carriers, Air Canada and WestJet Airlines, are suspending regional service starting Friday evening.

No natural cover

Off the coast of Nova Scotia is the Sable Island National Park Reserve, a narrow strip of dunes and grasslands managed by Parks Canada. Here roam some 500 Sable Island Horses alongside the world’s biggest breeding colony of grey seals.

All scheduled flights for visitors have been canceled and a small team of officials are prepared to shelter in place on the island, Parks Canada representative Jennifer Nicholson said, adding team members had been busy securing materials and equipment to minimize possible damage.

But the horses, which are not indigenous to the sandbar and are believed to have been brought by European sailors in the 18th century, have practically no natural cover on the isle.

“Over the last two centuries, the horses of Sable Island have adapted remarkably well to their environment. During inclement weather the horses act instinctively and seek shelter in groups in the lee of the dunes for protection,” Nicholson said.

Environment Canada has issued a storm alert for much of Atlantic Canada, along with parts of Quebec.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

The post Wild horses face unruly storms as Fiona nears East Coast appeared first on Farmtario.

Billed as North America’s only crab apple orchard, Appleflats Foods near Wellesley is on a mission to save a species and grow a new industry in the process. 

The young co-founders didn’t set out to be apple growers or food processors, but their entrepreneurial approach has landed their crab apple jellies and cocktail mixers in more than 400 retail outlets in Ontario, including Sobeys, Foodland, Metro and Farm Boy. They’re also budding ag-tech innovators and their urban harvest program is eliminating thousands of pounds of food waste. 

Why it matters: Crab apples were commonplace in Ontario until after the Second World War, but now they are disappearing from the landscape, which endangers their survival. 

“People love our family business story, but this species will go extinct if our business fails,” said Glen Smyth. “That’s why our tagline is ‘buy a bottle, save a species’.”

It all began in 1991 when his parents, aunt and uncle bought a landlocked property next to an environmentally protected wetland near Wellesley to build a house. They marked the completion of their new family home by planting a tree, which just happened to be a heritage variety crab apple. 

His mother, Ruth Abernethy, turned the fruit into jelly using juice from the pressed apples, a technique still used at Appleflats today. Apples are harvested, pressed and the juice frozen to reduce storage needs and let the company produce fresh jelly year-round. 

Their first big sale was 330 jars of jam to nearby Monforte Dairy in Stratford. And it wasn’t until the dairy came back for more that the Smyth brothers learned they couldn’t just go to the Ontario Food Terminal or other produce sellers to source the fruit needed for their jelly.

“Crab apples really fell off the map between about 1945 and 1975. They drop easily from the tree so municipalities don’t like them because they plug up sewers, and they’re too small so you can’t grade them and pack them like other apples,” Smyth says.

By this time, both brothers had spent time working in the oil patch and decided to come home to Ontario to give fruit farming a try. They invested their earnings into crab apple orchard plantings in 2016, but that didn’t solve their immediate fruit shortage problem. So, they began reaching out to homeowners and municipalities, offering to harvest their crab apple trees. 

“We now harvest 750 sites from Strathroy to Peterborough, which is about 50 per cent of what exists of this species in the wild,” Smyth says. “We maintain the trees and harvest the fruit, they get the blossoms and we’ve prevented over 100,000 tons of food waste in the process.” 

Crab apple trees are harvested much like olives – shaking the tree drops the fruit onto tarps, which are emptied into an apple sorting machine his father invented. It cleans the fruit and separates leaves and branches for municipal waste. 

The 44-inch-long battery-operated sorter and a 48-inch apple bin fit into the back of a truck, which the Smyths rent for $20 a day, and can support 1,500 pounds of apple harvest daily. Harvest happens during the last three weeks of August using student workers.

“We do this because we don’t have money to buy things and it’s expensive to get into farming,” Smyth says, adding that simplicity is the secret behind their successful urban harvest business. 

“The sorter is moveable, safe to use with only a single button to push, and it’s possible to train a student how to use it in only 30 minutes or less.” 

The sorter’s innovative design landed the brothers on Dragon’s Den. Smyth hopes to learn shortly if they’ll be airing as part of season 16. A mechanical tree shaker is also in development. 

There is no official crab apple breeding program in Ontario, so they’re also doing their own breeding experiments to establish optimal tree spacing, pruning, shade requirements, ideal rootstock and more. 

In addition to their jellies and cocktail mixers, Appleflats also sells to craft cideries and is developing partnerships for new crab apple products like freezies and ice cream. An exciting development would be a beverage like a crab apple ginger ale or a crab apple radler, Smyth suggests, although production is not yet high enough to sustain that kind of fruit demand. 

Last fall, Appleflats began selling into Michigan and the company has big plans for U.S. expansion.

The post Using innovation to save declining species appeared first on Farmtario.

Vivid Machines is developing the Vivid X system that will automate predicting and managing apple yield and quality, and eventually provide early detection of pests, diseases, and nutrient deficiencies. 

Why it matters: Precisely monitoring high value fruit can help head off challenges before they become a problem.

Co-founders Jenny Lemieux, who grew up on a farm in Ilderton and holds a Masters in Artificial Intelligence Management, and Jonathan Binas, a physicist with a PhD in brain-inspired computing, first met when they were participants in a program called Entrepreneur First. 

With their joint interests in information technology, machine learning and food production, developing technology solutions for agriculture seemed a natural fit.

After conversations with approximately 200 growers, agronomists, staff from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, Lemieux and Binas learned that while there is a lot of post-harvest technology in fruit growing, most of the production work was still manual. 

“One of the main challenges expressed was that they are still manually measuring and counting bugs, blossoms and apples, resulting in them losing marketable yield,” Lemieux says. 

Vivid Machines developed a small spectral imaging sensor that detects wavelength into the near infrared – which can distinguish green apples from green leaves. Given the variability in the apple industry, they’re focused on building a system that is easily adaptable, inexpensive and simple to set up. 

The current prototype includes a tractor or golf cart-mountable camera that can move at tractor speed, look at trees and detect diseases and pests, count blossom clusters and detect and measure apples. The system doesn’t require a separate pass through the orchard but can scan trees as growers are performing regular activities. 

The goal is to have a commercial version by next spring that can be tested in up to 10 orchards next season.

“We are at the information-gathering stage now for the system. We have to feed it data, so it knows how to interpret the photos and make it more accurate as it learns,” she says. “The more data it gets, the more accurate it can be.”

Helping Lemieux and Binas with that are three growers in Ontario and one in British Columbia who have volunteered to serve as research farms during the system’s development. 

Gerbe Botden is Orchard Manager at Blue Mountain Fruit Company near Thornbury, which supplies most of Canada’s major retailers. That means Botden is always asked to provide estimates on crop quality, quantity and size, a process currently done manually and by tree block. 

“If you can make this an automated process and you come in and capture data on the farm, it’s going to be immensely helpful to us,” Botden says. “Data drives decision-making on our farm and in the future, we hope we can dive into more difficult aspects like nutrient content or deficiencies or pest and disease pressure, which can help us make better decisions through the season.” 

Riley Bruce, orchard manager at Chudleigh’s Farm in Milton, is also helping Vivid Machines with data and farm access and sees a lot of potential to help boost crop quality, particularly in being able to predict disease problems before they strike.

“In the future, they should be able to tell with the camera what disease is coming next week, which will be better than our trained eye. The leaves can tell you what’s up,” Bruce says. “When you see the disease on the tree, it’s too late so this can open up our window a bit and we can treat before it shows up, which will increase our quality.”

Lemieux says the sweet spot for the technology is orchards in the 100 to 300 acre range, and she’s hopeful the technology will be able to lift grower profitability by as much as $1,000 an acre by getting more fruit into the quality and size distribution retailers want. 

Vivid Machines was recently named one of 24 semi-finalists in the federal government’s Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Grand prize winners will be announced in 2023.

The post Taking the guess work out of estimating apple yield appeared first on Farmtario.

Excalia delivers locally systemic and translaminar action for complete leaf tissue uptake and distribution across the entire leaf surface. It is designed as an early season product to help growers get off to a clean start. This Group 7 SDHI fungicide features the active ingredient Indiflin.

“The key with most diseases is early season preventative treatment,” said Alicia Sebastian, horticulture sales specialist at Nufarm.

In apples, Excalia must be applied between green tip and petal fall. Excalia is highly active against the apple scab pathogen and it works to inhibit spore production, spore germination and actively growing fungi. For powdery mildew protection, Excalia must be applied with a silicone surfactant and it tank mixes well with other fungicides and foliar nutrients.

The post New fungicide treats sugar beets appeared first on Farmtario.

Tribology, the science of wear, friction, and lubrication, is commonly used in food processing for semi-solid products like yogurt and spreads. The institution says new research shows it’s also effective enough to replace existing methods of quality measurement in apples.

Why it matters: Vineland’s new approach to apple quality measurement could provide a new tool for processors and retailers.

The technology, however, appears more oriented to processors and retailers rather than farmers. A new, universally agreed-upon standard for some quality characteristics would also be necessary.

“Until now tribology hasn’t been used on hard foods,” says Alexandra Grygorczyk, a research scientist in Vineland’s department of sensory and consumer services, in a news release published by the institute.

“We found tribology was able to predict crispness, juiciness and mealiness — the most important texture features for consumers when eating an apple. Interestingly, we determined tribology is more effective than the industry standard penetrometer, for measuring apple firmness.

“Friction measurements using tribology equipment not only predicted apple crispness, which is related to firmness, but also mealiness and juiciness which the penetrometer is not able to predict reliably.”

Further investigations involved using a friction-measuring attachment on a texture analyzer, which is an instrument widely available within the horticulture industry.

“Findings showed with simple and fairly inexpensive modifications, a texture analyzer can be used to produce friction measurements strongly associated with texture perception by a trained sensory panel while outperforming a penetrometer,” said Grygorczyk in a release.

In a later interview, Grygorczyk said measurements would be taken via sample. Segments of a crop or shipment of apples are selected and placed in the friction-measuring device (a tribometer in Vineland’s case) that uses pressure to determine the sample’s characteristics.

Different areas of the value chain could make use of the technology, says Grygorczyk, such as farmers prior to harvest, breeders during the breeding process, or retailers keeping apples in storage. Overall, this would support domestic competitiveness.

Grygorczyk says the friction rig can be purchased for about $4,000 for a business that already owns a textural analyzer, but the overall cost is significantly higher for those who have to buy the analyzer. Friction analyzers are more commonly found among packers than growers.

Kirk Kemp, president of Algoma Orchards, a significant Ontario apple producer and processor, says his company employs “old-school” methods of quality measurement consisting of early-season starch tests and lots of pressure testing. Most electronic pressure-testing, he says, occurs within the processing plant rather than the orchards.

Measuring mealiness might be possible with new technology, says Kemp, but making use of the data would be difficult because no uniform mealiness standard exists. Every part of the supply chain would need to adopt a universal scoring system for it to work.

“That’s a bit of a hurdle. It’s like when we went metric,” he says. “What’s used today is the [sugar], acid, and pressure.”

The post Vineland refines test for apple quality appeared first on Farmtario.

Foreign labour is critical to farm production in both countries, where domestic workers shun the hard physical labour and low pay.

In Canada, where farms rely on 60,000 temporary foreign workers, their arrivals are delayed by initial border restrictions and grounded flights. Once they arrive, the federal government requires them to be isolated for 14 days with pay, unable to work.

In the United States, nearly 250,000 foreign guest workers, mostly from Mexico, help harvest fruit and vegetables each year. The State Department is processing H-2A visas for farm workers with reduced staffing, though some companies are still having a hard time getting workers in on time.

Ontario farmer Mike Chromczak said he was afraid he might be unable to harvest his asparagus crop next month unless his 28 Jamaican workers start arriving by mid-April.

“It would be well over 50 per cent of our farm’s revenue” lost, Chromczak said. “But I see it as a much bigger issue than me. This is a matter of food security for our country.”

Steve Bamford’s 35 Caribbean workers are just starting to trickle in to his Ontario apple orchards. Then they are isolated and paid for 40 hours per week during that period without touching a tree. Pruning work, a critical step to maximize yields, is now overdue.

“It’s an extreme cost. You don’t plan on bringing people in and not work for two weeks,” Bamford said.

Some Canadian farmers expect to reap smaller fruit and vegetable harvests this year if foreign labour is not available soon, said Scott Ross, director of farm policy for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

In the U.S., “delays are potentially very hazardous to farmers who were counting on that workforce to show up at an exact period of time to harvest a perishable crop,” said Dave Puglia, CEO of Western Growers Association, which represents fruit and vegetable companies in states such as California and Arizona.

He said workers in the U.S. do not have to wait 14 days before they start working, although more efforts are being made to space workers out on the farms.

Dannia Sanchez, president of D+J and Sons Harvesting in Florida, is awaiting approval to bring in some 200 temporary workers, while blueberries in Florida ripen and Michigan asparagus nears harvest.

Abad Hernandez Cruz, a Mexican farmworker harvesting onions in Georgia, said he is working 12 or more hours a day.

“A lot of people are missing,” he said, referring to farmworkers whose visas weren’t approved after the United States scaled back some consular activities in response to coronavirus.

“If the farm doesn’t produce, the city doesn’t eat.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg and Chris Walljasper in Chicago.

The post Canadian, U.S. farms face crop losses on foreign worker delays appeared first on Farmtario.

Farmers will not be allowed to use the neonic insecticide, sold under the brands Calypso and Biscaya, after April 30, 2020, when its current approval expires.

A majority of EU countries approved the proposal of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, not to extend approval.

The Commission based its assessment on findings of the European Food Safety Agency published in January 2019. It highlighted concerns about the active substance being toxic for humans and present in too great a concentration in ground water, an EFSA spokesman said in an email.

The EU prohibited the use of three so-called neonicotinoids everywhere except greenhouses in April 2018. France has already outlawed all four insecticides and one other, including in greenhouses.

In Canada, thiacloprid picked up full registration from the federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency in 2007 and is sold by Bayer under the Calypso 480 SC brand.

The product is registered in the six eastern provinces and British Columbia for use in pome fruit, such as apples and pears, to control Oriental fruit moth, apple maggot and leafhopper, among others.

Bayer CropScience Canada bills the product as “the first new truly broad-spectrum insecticide for apple and pear growers since the organophosphates in the 1960s.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Marine Strauss. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.

The post EU to ban Bayer’s Calypso insecticide appeared first on Farmtario.

Less well known, but nonetheless starting to make an impact on tourism and a burgeoning wine industry in cooler regions of North America are cold hardy wine grape cultivars, also from the University of Minnesota, like Marquette and La Crescent.

Why it matters: Cool climate fruit varieties give growers a chance to be competitive in their local markets, lessening dependence on imports and generating economic activity.

“The Honeycrisp has changed our industry,” said Charles Stevens, who grows apples and blueberries on his farm east of Toronto near Newcastle. “It’s the hardest apple in the world to grow in my opinion but it’s the easiest apple that I’ve ever seen to market. It didn’t need any advertising – people ate one and told 10 other people.”

First released in 1991, its distinctly crisp texture and juicy sweetness made it an instant hit with consumers, despite it being pricier than other apples.

But it’s that premium that makes it worthwhile for farmers to grow. Stevens was one of Ontario’s first Honeycrisp growers, planting his first trees in 2000; today it commands the biggest acreage in his orchard. Ontario-wide, it’s now the third most planted variety in the province with 10 per cent of the acreage, behind Gala and long-time stalwart Macintosh.

Honeycrisp grows best in cool climates and is hardy into the low minus 30C range. The cooler the summer, the better the apple will grow. Georgian Bay and eastern Ontario are most ideally suited in this province and elsewhere in Canada, Stevens believes Nova Scotia has the best Honeycrisp growing climate.

It’s the biennial nature of its fruit production that makes it a hard-to-grow apple. Without thinning the blossoms, growers have a bumper crop one year and virtually no crop the following year – and they only have a short window from time of pollination to get that thinning done, which means it must be done chemically.

As well, stems left on harvested Honeycrisp apples can puncture small holes into other apples, leading to rot in storage or after packing. Most growers now harvest this variety using small stem clippers.

“We’re still learning how to grow the apple as best as possible,” Stevens said.

The University of Minnesota is home to one of three university apple breeding programs in the U.S. Most of its older varieties have found regional popularity – Haralson, introduced in the 1920s, is still widely grown – but it’s newer ones like Honeycrisp and some of its more recently introduced offspring like SweeTango, Rave and First Kiss that are attracting attention.

According to Prof. Jim Luby, director of fruit breeding programs at the University of Minnesota, texture and flavour are the two leading characteristics their breeders select for, followed by appearance as a more distant third.

“Apple breeding is a dating program, like E-Harmony for apples, when two parents are matched for strengths and weaknesses,” Luby explained during a visit to the University of Minnesota arboretum. “Then it’s a mating program, like artificial insemination, where pollen is collected from father trees and exposed to mother tree flowers, which produces hybrid seeds that are germinated and grown to fruiting.”

And finally, he added, it’s also a testing program where offspring are evaluated once they’re producing fruit – and that’s where the real work begins. Luby and his team taste up to 500 apples per day, with most varieties discarded during the first year; he estimates about one in 15,000 ends up on the market as a new variety.

That can take 15 to 20 years and they’ve started using marker-assisted selection to help them make better selections sooner, as well as grafting seedlings onto dwarfing rootstock to help shorten the juvenile phase.

“The apple industry in the U.S is not excited about having GM apples to sell – we could speed up more but if you can’t use the product, it’s not much use,” he said.

According to Matthew Clark, assistant professor in grape breeding and enology, grape breeding at University of Minnesota mirrors what’s happening in apples.

“Native grapes have evolved with native pests and because they’ve adapted to different soils, they have interesting flavours,” Clark said. “Minnesota-specific issues are high humidity, a short and wet growing season and cold winter temperatures.”

Today, DNA markers are now used to screen grape plants when they are two to three inches high, and of the approximately 10,000 seeds started each year, about 1,000 will move forward to produce fruit.

Since 1997, the program has been releasing one new variety every five to 10 years. This includes Frontenac (1997), La Crescent (2002), Frontenac gris (2003), Marquette (2005) and most recently Itasca (2017).

“This has led to real jobs and tourism dollars,” he said. “In 1997, there were three commercial vineyards in Minnesota. Now we’re at almost 80.”

It is estimated that the University of Minnesota grape varieties create economic impact of $540 million USD, he added.

7 Vines Vineyard, about 35 km north of Minneapolis – St. Paul, is one of the state’s newer wineries. With the first vines planted in 2012, the winery now has 90 acres of Minnesota-bred cultivars. In addition to wine production, the focus has also been on turning their business into a destination for corporate events, weekend day trips from the city and weddings.

The Ontario government has recently expanded its VQA program to include Marquette on its list of approved grape varieties. This means winemakers in the province can sell wines using Marquette into the LCBO and at Farmers’ Markets. A number of wineries in Eastern Ontario are already growing Marquette – Pinot Noir is one of its grandparents, Clark says – due to its cold hardiness.

The post Cold climate apples and grapes put University of Minnesota on the map appeared first on Farmtario.