Canada has been fighting wildfires across the country. “While it’s very early in the season, they are present in Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and the West,” says Ken Lyons with Blue Mountain Fruit Company. The wind is blowing the smoke down, hovering the Northeast of the United States. “The presence of smoke has caused some concerns on the color of apples,” commented Lyons. “Up until now, there hasn’t been any impact, but the critical time is when apples start turning color. This is around early August and hopefully, the smoke will be gone by then.” Smoke is known to prevent apples from turning into their desired color.

Other than the smoke, growing conditions for apples have been ideal up until now. “We’ve had great summer weather,” said Lyons. “A combination of reasonable rainfall and nice, warm weather is resulting in apples sizing up nicely.” Estimates for the upcoming crop are good. “Last year, Ontario had a really robust harvest with a significant volume and big size fruit.” Lyons is hopeful this situation will repeat itself this year.

Local availability
In recent years, Blue Mountain’s apple production has increased as more acreage has come into production and the company is transitioning out of old varieties into new ones. “Consumption in Ontario grew so rapidly that we decided to increase our production capacity. As a result, the availability of our Red Prince variety will extend into July instead of May. With the increased supply, we’ve helped Canadian retailers stay local,” Lyons added. The pressure on minimum wage and availability of labor forced Blue Mountain to move towards a more automated facility. “At the time of inception earlier this year, our new 135,000 sq. ft. apple packing plant was the most technically advanced in North America,” Lyons shared proudly. The plant has the ability to sort the best color and eliminate internal and external defects.

Red Prince
While Blue Mountain grows many different apple varieties like Honeycrisp, Ambrosia, Gala, and McIntosh, the company owns the trademark of the Red Prince® variety. “The variety was discovered by the Princen brothers along the Dutch-German border in 1994. Its deep red color inspired the Botden Family, who lived in the Netherlands at the time. They negotiated the rights to become the exclusive growers of the Red Prince apple in Canada and immigrated to Ontario 2001. In 2012, the variety was trademarked. In addition to Ontario, Red Prince is now also grown under license in Quebec and the Maritimes.

Marius and Irma Botden immigrated from the Netherlands with their four children. The children, second-generation family members, are now taking leadership responsibility with Gerbe being Orchard Manager, Gitty Plant Coordinator and Sacha being Production Manager.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com