Berry farms brave storms, eye opening days

Despite the unprecedented downpour, berry season is on in Manitoba.

Bright red strawberries have begun sprouting at Boonstra Farms — just two weeks after the Stonewall-area patch was hit by 11 inches of rain during a storm.

“Hopefully, it’ll still be an OK season,” said co-owner Danielle Boonstra. “We’re still hoping to open, probably after Canada Day.”

Torrential rain and cold temperatures have pushed strawberry picking season back to, likely, the first week of July. Haskap picking may start this weekend.

Boonstra won’t know the full effects of the month’s rain on her crops until picking time. The company has 24 acres of strawberries for 2026 customers; staff planted another 12 acres’ worth for 2027.

They trenched the fields to drain standing water and transplanted about 1,500 plants by hand. The water diversion seems to have worked, Boonstra said.

“It’s a tough business to be in, farming. You just never know with the weather,” she said. “As long as the hail stays away, I think we might be OK.”

Rain is in the forecast for the coming weekend.

It’s something many producers don’t need, said Angie Cormier, executive director of the Prairie Fruit Growers Association.

Cormier co-owns Cormier’s Berry Patch in La Salle. The 15-acre farm — with 10 acres for picking — avoided hail and logged three inches of rain over June 9-10, when storms hammered swathes of Manitoba.

Cormier expects to open in the next week to 10 days. She anticipates this to be the case for most strawberry fields; saskatoons, raspberries and sour cherries will follow.

The association counts at least 60 member farms. Those doing business in the Interlake and near Swan River have been hardest hit by storms in June, with mass flooding of fields and residential basements.

U-pick sites in other areas of the province have been less affected.

Coming weeks will reveal the extent of crop damage and whether pests and fungus will be issues, Cormier said.

“We’ve all been very lucky that, for the most part, we’ve been able to have a crop of some sort,” she said. “If there is a crop loss, it is devastating.”

Unlike grain farmers, Manitoba fruit growers aren’t covered by crop insurance. The Prairie Fruit Growers Association has been talking with government for years, trying to create a program, Cormier said.

It’s “complex,” she added: fruits are perennial crops, meaning they can’t be replanted right away — they’re in the same spot for years.

Berry yields aren’t weighed at grain elevators; the food is picked and sold, so volume is calculated differently.

“It’s just having to think outside the box for a different kind of program,” Cormier said. “I’m hopeful that we can work towards something.

“Meantime we all, as growers … carry on.”

The trick is finding a product suitable for both farmers and the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp., said David Van Deynze, the Crown corporation’s chief product officer.

“We haven’t been able to quite land on … what the best insurance looks like — what would be best for farmers, what would be something that MASC could administer appropriately as well,” he said.

Berry farmers can buy establishment insurance for plants less than a year old, and hail insurance for strawberries. Neither have great uptake, Van Deynze said.

He encouraged berry growers to share their ideas with the association; the Crown entity continues to work with the group.

At the Purple Berry Orchard, saskatoon plants have been in place for, in some cases, two to three decades.

Brent Wolfe and his family operate the nine-acre U-pick orchard just west of the Perimeter Highway, in the Rural Municipality of Rosser. They rent another eight acres in Stonewall, where berries are mechanically harvested.

The rented land logged more than 10 inches of rain this month. Plants yellowed as they sat in water, but they “seem to be recovering,” Wolfe said.

He’s not projecting crop loss. The U-pick land should be ready for customers in mid-July, as of Friday.

“Other than being a little bit delayed, just because of the cool spring, I think everything is on track,” Wolfe said. “Crop looks good, especially in the U-pick.”

Strawberry picking season in Manitoba began at the end of June last year.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com