As Florida farmers recover from Hurricane Ian, our Canadian neighbors have their own damage from another storm.
Tropical Storm Fiona hit part of Canada hard, with damage estimated at more than $1 billion. A fruit orchard grower on Prince Edward Island says they were just starting apple harvest when the storm hit. Many of his trees were broken by the winds, and he says it will take years to re-establish his work.
“We’re still counting. We have 152 rows and we have 13,000 trees. It’s pretty significant. It’s one thing for the fruit to be on the ground because of the storm, which is a one-time loss. It’s another thing to have our complete infrastructure, trellis system, and the trees, snapped. So, that sets us back five years. Go back and rip those out, and transplant new ones in the spring, that’s going to be a five-year delay before we get back to where we were,” said Geoff Boyle.
Boyle says he was able to salvage about 800 pounds of apples, but in the scale of his operation, that is not very much.
