B.C. Views Skills training ‘our mission’: Dix. p6
Time for Salvation Army to move on? p3
THE NEws
Arts&life Ridge actors in Christmas comedy. p19
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Pitt petition against nLC application growing Residents claim city not forwarding information by M on i sh a M ar ti n s staff reporter
Farm fields, like this one at the corner of Neaves and McNeil roads, need some water after the area’s driest August and September on record.
Colleen Flanagan/The neWS
Weather good for some crops Warm, dry spell not as good for others, though
by Ro b er t M a n g e ls d or f staff reporter
With unseasonably warm, dry weather continuing into mid October, local farmers are reveling in a large and late harvest. However, the bumper crop comes with its own set of issues. The Vancouver area experienced it driest August and September on record, according to Environment Canada data. The Lower Mainland saw less
than a tenth of its normal precipitation during the two-month span, with just 7.9 mm of rain falling compared to 92.6 mm on average. At Environment Canada’s weather station at Pitt Meadows airport, only 11.0 mm of total precipitation was recorded from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30. The warm, dry weather comes after one of the coldest and wettest months of June on record. That meant a late start to the season for many farmers, including Heather Laity, who owns the Laity Pumpkin Patch on 128th Street. “We planted late this year, but the pumpkin crop has come in re-
ally good thanks to the weather,” she said. “The pumpkins love that hot heat, so they’ve come in with nice color, deep oranges and green stems.” As an agri-tourism business, Laity said the sunshine and warm weather benefits not only the crop they are growing, but helps attract better crowds. Thanks to the warm sunny weather, the local tourist attraction had its busiest ever Thanksgiving weekend, and is already fully-booked for school groups for this season, with another three weeks to go until Halloween. While dry weather this time of year usually translates into frost at
night and can be deadly for crops, this year the weather has been too warm for any frost issues locally. “We had a touch of frost down here a few weeks ago, but it didn’t do any damage,” said Laity. “They took it just fine and it didn’t bother them at all.” While the warm weather has been beneficial to late harvest produce like pumpkins, earlyripening produce has had its own issues. Despite the late start, warm, dry weather run in August caused the local blueberry crop to ripen early, according to Newton Sahota of Twin Berry Farms. See Crops, p12
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A petition against Pitt Meadows’ plans to remove a large chunk of farmland from the agricultural reserve has more than 400 signatures and continues to gather steam. Although the city’s exclusion application has already been sent to the Agricultural Land Commission, Sandi Banni is still receiving signed copies of the petition. “There are more pouring in daily,” said Banni, a resident of Dorado, a gated community adjacent to the properties in question. The commission has yet to set a date for making the decision that would pave the way for development on 50.9 hectares (125 acres) of land in the North Lougheed Corridor. See Petition, p11
G
host Ridge haunted house preys upon phobias. See story, p13
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