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RULED INELIGIBLE for a medal, that didn’t stop Kelowna Grade 12 student Aaron Stroda from winning three throwing events at youth nationals.
COLUMNIST Maxine DeHart reveals a new commercial janitorial service in Kelowna that goes about its business in an eco-friendly way.
WESTBANK First Nation artist Marion Radawetz takes on a ground-breaking form of jewelry design from her ancestral past.
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THURSDAY August 15, 2013 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
Latest Gellatly Road upgrades unveiled
▼ SAVAGE HAILSTORM
Orchardists face crop losses in the millions Judie Steeves STAFF REPORTER
Wade Paterson STAFF REPORTER
hurts them personally to see such destruction,” he explained. He’s been in the industry since the 1970s and says he’s never seen such widespread damage.
Several people running and walking on the new and improved waterfront trail along Gellatly Road had to duck under a red ribbon Wednesday morning as West Kelowna Mayor Doug Findlater announced the completion of Gellatly Road phase three upgrades. The $3.15 million project improved the road surface and existing lakeside trail and added cycling lanes, pedestrian lookouts, streetlights, dedicated parking with assigned handicapped stalls, storm sewers and catch basins. Seventy new trees were also planted and drought-tolerant, irrigated landscaping was installed. “This is our front yard,” said Findlater. “We can fix roads here and there, but when we fix this road and rehabilitate this area, (it’s) for everyone.” Since 2010, approximately $5 million has been invested in Gellatly Road, transforming it into a multi-use corridor. The first phase of improvements started at The Cove Lakeside Resort.
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JUDIE STEEVES/CAPITAL NEWS
TATTERED LEAVES and bruised fruit are all that
high density Ambrosia, Gala, MacIntosh, Spartan, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp and Golden Delicious apple varieties. At 6:30 p.m. on Monday, he was looking out the window at an approaching storm cloud when he heard the first rustling, as dry hail began to hit the leaves of his trees. Then the rain began and the wind, followed by more periods of hail; balls of ice the size of large marbles. There were still piles of ice around in the orchard the next morning, he says. The storm was so intense that roads in the area are dotted with patches of gravel and mud from errant streams of runoff from neighbouring properties.
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“Yesterday (Monday), I thought this would be a good year, with a beautiful crop of good-sized apples,” he said. Tuesday, he looked out over an orchard littered with shredded leaves and bruised apples—fruit that isn’t even suitable for juice. Just last week, Jaswal had even put on an extra spray to help improve the quality of the fruit as harvest approaches in the coming weeks, but that $2,000 just went down the drain in a hail of ice pellets. Some of the growers affected by this week’s storm in Kelowna have suffered a total loss, with damage not only to this year’s crop, but also to the tree vigour and the fruit buds for next year’s crop. Because it’s so close
UMMER ELLDOWN
to harvest for both apple and grape growers, most of the season’s input costs have already been spent, yet they’ll have no income to pay for them. “It’s heart-breaking,” said Peter Straume, field man with the B.C. Grape Growers’ Association,
who was out Tuesday assessing damage to grape crops. “Growers (of the Coronation table grapes) were ramping up for harvest, and to be fair, most growers put in far more than the money as they grow the crop, so it really
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Southeast Kelowna orchardist Kamaljeet Jaswal has left after an intense hailstorm ripped through his orchard Monday evening. Photo above shows damage caused to a cluster of grapes.
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Broken branches hang limply, while leaves are shredded—turned into see-through lace—and fruit has been punctured, bruised and, in some instances, tossed to the ground. The devastation in orchards, vineyards and fields in Southeast Kelowna is total on some farms. For the first half of the year, farmers had fertilized their plants, irrigated the roots, pruned the branches, pollinated the flowers, sprayed competing weeds, thinned the young fruit and otherwise tended their crops. But all those efforts, in some cases their entire crops, were wiped out by a half-hour hailstorm Monday evening that was brutal in its fury. Hailstones described as the size of marbles slashed leaves into ribbons along the storm’s path, broke branches and flattened whole crops, while farmers could only helplessly watch. B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association president Jeet Dukhia estimates 25,000 to 30,000 bins of apples have been lost in just a few hailstorms this year, a loss of 10 to 15 per cent of the valley’s crop, with an estimated value of $4 million to $6 million. Kamaljeet Jaswal, of Spiers Road, has 14 acres of apples, all replanted in the past decade or so to
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