Late frost takes toll on blueberry industry

“Immediate” attention is required to save Nova Scotia’s blueberry industry from financial ruin following this week’s killing frost, an official says.

“This severe frost event has brought that critical situation into sharper focus and the industry needs immediate attention to avoid financial collapse for its more than 1,000 producers across the province,” said Peter Rideout, executive director of the Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia in an emailed news release.

“This event was severe and widespread and occurred just as fields in northern Nova Scotia were approaching the critical full bloom stage.”

More than 60 per cent of the province’s 41,500 acres of wild blueberry land is located in Colchester and Cumberland counties, with major production areas across all of northern Nova Scotia, the central region, Cape Breton lsland and the southwest.

Rideout said last Sunday’s overnight frost hit just as the industry is climbing out of two years of “devastatingly” low prices and financial hardship for producers who otherwise had been optimistic for an improving market outlook this year because of good bloom and crop potential.

The industry’s crop scientists have been in the fields since Monday morning assessing the damage. An immediate concern is the potential for a serious infection of botrytis blight on the frost-damaged plant tissues, which could wipe out any viable blossoms that might remain.

Rideout said the association has been collaborating with the provincial government on identification of programs to support the industry and help it recover from the “devastating” market downturn of the past two years but no commitment has been finalized.