Niagara fruit farmers still dealing with damage from summer flooding

Niagara-area tender fruit growers are still dealing with the impacts of devastating flooding from late July and early August — and they could be for a number of years.

The Niagara area got hit by three historic rainstorms over a three-week period, leaving acres and acres of orchards underwater and damaging thousands of fruit trees.

Phil Tregunno is surveying his nectarine orchard in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which was underwater a few weeks ago.

“What you’re seeing is, as a result of the water damage, the discolouration of the leaves. And obviously the tree is really stressed from being underwater for several days,” Tregunno said.

Tregunno said there were at least 1,500 trees like that in the orchard that were underwater. Now he says it’s a waiting game to see if they survive.

“The real damage in trees like this, you don’t know whether it’s gonna make it to the fall or after the winter since it’s been hurt — it just doesn’t leaf out and it dies instead in the spring,” he said.

This is just one of several tender fruit orchards of Tregunno’s that was essentially drowned. He says because of the way farm insurance works, the damage won’t be covered.

“Part of our problem in the industry, and we’ve been advocating for it for a number of years, is to get site specific insurance. So most growers carry crop insurance and that which covers tree insurance. But without it being site specific, it takes your whole farm into account. If you lose in one area you don’t get covered,” Tregunno said.

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Romagnoli Farms in Beamsville was hit hard by the flooding as well.

“In the course of three weeks we probably had three 100-year floods consolidated into three weeks, so it was pretty crazy to say the least. Orchards were flooded, even some of our barns were flooded, our equipment was flooded. As far as the trees themselves go, it’s a long-term thing,” said Jack Romagnoli.

Romagnoli says tender fruit trees are sensitive to flooding.

“They’re shallow. They’re not deep rooted so the trees are shallow, the water comes in and floods the surface of the ground, and it floods them and they basically suffocate,” Romagnoli said.

And like Tregunno Farms, Romagnoli says he may not know the extent of damage until next spring.

“It’s a next year’s thing. This year it will just survive, it will just sort of struggle through. You won’t really know. But it’s the accumulated effect of overwatering, like you’d have on a houseplant,” he said.

“If you lose a tree, next spring if the tree is dead or whatever, then you’ve got to replant and start all new, right? If you can get the same variety in the same tree,” Tregunno said.

CHCH News has been told that replacing and planting a tender fruit tree will cost about $30 each. Even then, they may not bear fruit for up to four years.

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