Quebec’s only harvest of commercially available peaches this year has unfortunately been pillaged partly by animals, but also by humans.
Posted at 4:53 p.m.
The co-owners of Domaine de Dunham in the Eastern Townships were in for a nasty surprise last Friday when it came time to harvest their precious bounty.
“Our waiter who was sent to pick it up came back with a peach and told us: That’s it,” sighs co-owner Giselle Larocque. Months of work evaporated in the space of a few nights.
Gisèle Larocque identifies three reasons to explain this sad news. First, despite the many precautions taken to protect the beech trees, animals, especially raccoons, depred 10 to 15% of the crop more than usual.
Farmer estimates that “two-legged” thieves are responsible for 15 to 20% of losses. He adds that the proximity of her beech trees to the road must have contributed to the robbery.
All this, not counting the losses incurred during last year’s drought which damaged the buds of many trees, has reduced peach production this year.
2200 kg fishing
Gisèle Larocque does not currently plan to file a police report because it is not a “violent crime.” “We work very hard, all the farmers, to reach the end, our price is already good,” sighs the farmer.
According to Claude Girard, the other co-owner of Domaine de Dunham, more than 2,200 kg of peaches were harvested last year. Around 226 new peach and nectarine trees were also planted to meet the increasing customer demand.
Dig trenches
Co-owners are considering several solutions to protect their future peach harvests. After years of hard work to grow these beech trees, this year would have been their fourth in normal times.
Giselle Larocque believes that while the estate’s large area makes it impossible to completely fence it off, digging deep trenches around the area could deter thieves.
As for the raccoons, the co-owners of Domaine de Dunham are thinking of installing traps to save their precious fruit next season.
It should be noted that peaches from Domaine de Dunham are only commercially available in Quebec, as many Quebecers still have private peach trees on their land. However, the climate of the province is not suitable for the cultivation of this fruit, which is more widespread in southern Ontario.
“In Dunham we have a microclimate that makes our winters harsh and our summers long, so we were able to grow peach trees there,” explains Giselle Larocque.
An event event
According to Patrice Léger-Borgeau, director general of the Association des protectors maricultures du Québec, the theft of vegetables and fruits remains a regular occurrence across the province.
Some crops, such as peaches, are still rare and therefore more prone to looting.
“When you put yourself in the shoes of someone who wants to steal broccoli, it’s not easy. “It’s a manual harvest, it has to be done broccoli by broccoli,” he explains. In addition, the harvest time is very tight, so farmers work 18-19 hours a day during harvest time, so thieves don’t have much time. »
Every year, some market gardeners still fall victim to vandalism in their land. But the variability of weather is the main factor explaining the production loss, which will increase over the years.
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