Okanagan producers eye new crops in face of climate pressures
The devastating losses for wine and some fruit producers in the Okanagan in the past few years has some growers shifting their focus and looking to diversify.
At operations like Paynter’s Fruit Market in West Kelowna, Gatzke’s Orchards in Lake Country and McMillan Farms in Kelowna they are banking on vegetables, flowers and other ground crops.
“We’re planting so many more musk melons, cantaloupe and watermelons this year, because of the loss of the peaches,” Paynter’s owner/operator Jennay Oliver told Castanet after extreme cold in January wiped out her peaches and apricots.
