Bare Saskatoon berry branches at Green Valley Acres (photo courtesy Bob Schneider)

By Teagan Rasche

From a 30,000 pound harvest to nothing

‘We lost the whole harvest this year’: drought, heat not good for Saskatoons

Aug 9, 2021 | 3:25 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – What was once a thriving crop is now bare, dry dirt surrounded by berryless bushes.

“I haven’t had a single Saskatoon berry I was able to eat this year because we can’t find them,” Brittany Hutchings, who owns Green Valley Acres with her husband Mark, said. “We lost the whole harvest this year, which is disappointing. We know it’s part of farming, there’s going to be ups and downs but it always hurts when it happens.”

Green Valley Acres is a u-pick berry farm, located between Medicine Hat and Elkwater. After such a successful 2020 season with over 30,000 pounds of berries harvested, Brittany and Mark had big plans for this year.

“We worked very hard over the off season and this spring to pass our food safe audit,” Mark said. “We were excited to get our product into the local grocery stores here in town and move forward that way, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”

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Brittany and Mark also spent the winter working on a website, only to be hit with the worst year yet since they bought the farm.

The low maintenance Saskatoon berry couldn’t make it through the devastating drought and heat wave.

Meteorologist Kyle Fougere says it’s been a very warm and dry start to the summer.

“This June, there was only 20 millimeters of precipitation compared to an average of 65,” Fougere said. “July only saw 9.4 millimeters of precipitation where we’d expect 36. So far this summer, there’s only been 29 percent of the normal precipitation that has fallen in the Medicine Hat area.”

Fougere says the smoke from wildfires is also to blame for the drought, as it reduces thunderstorm activity preventing storms from forming.

Fortunately for the farmers, signs they were going to lose their crop came early enough so they could write it off.

“Typical harvest is the first week of July,” Mark said. “I would say by the second week of June we knew that unfortunately there weren’t going to be any berries to pick this year.”

While this year didn’t go well, the Hutchings are already optimistic about the next growing season and hoping to see their berries in stores next year.