Berry farmers plan for safe picking season

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This article was published 20/05/2020 (2311 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE news is good… berry good.

The pandemic won’t prevent Manitoba fruit growers from opening their farms to public pickers this year.

“This time of the year, when the sun comes out and it gets warmer out, we are — as an association, but also as farmers — start to get contacted about when the season is going to start; that’s normal,” said Angie Cormier of Cormier’s Berry Patch and the co-executive director of the Prairie Fruit Growers Association.

“This year, on top of that, with COVID-19, we’ve had people actually questioning whether farms are actually going to be open.”

Cormier said all 70 fruit farms in the province represented by the association will open to the public.

The pickings are slim at the moment, but haskap berries — the first of the season — are typically ready around the third week of June, followed a few days later by saskatoons and strawberries. Raspberries and sour cherries get picked in mid-July.

The association worked with Manitoba Agriculture fruit crops specialist Anthony Mintenko to develop COVID-19 guidelines. Because farms have different picking procedures, they will use the guidelines to suit their own needs, Cormier said.

“Some of those changes might be, some farms might be setting up an appointment system that they may not have had in the past, and they’re wanting to set that up just to control the flow of people, to help maintain the physical-distancing guidelines,” she said.

“We’re not sure if they’ll still be in place by the time picking starts… so we’re not sure what those guidelines will look like, come then.”

The Purple Berry Orchard, a saskatoon operation in Rosser, sells frozen fruit year-round, and is preparing for a mid-July you-pick opening.

Brent Wolfe, who owns the orchard with his wife and parents, said the biggest challenge is “trying to figure out traffic flow” to maintain social distancing and other health guidelines.

“Once they’re in the orchard, we have nine acres, so there’s lots of room to spread out,” he said. “But it’s just getting them out of the yard and into the orchard that we’re in the works trying to figure out.”

Appointments can be made to purchase frozen saskatoons now, and a similar setup will be in place in the summer if people would rather purchase pre-picked berries. Focusing on sanitization and maintaining distancing is the goal right now, Wolfe said, and any other changes will depend on how the province fares with the virus in July.

“The fact that it is an orchard outside with lots of space to separate the customers from each other, we’re hoping that’s going to alleviate a lot of that stress,” he said.

“It’s kind of a moving target right now, trying to figure out how things are going to play out.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: malakabas_