Brian Minter: Orchardists face many challenges in promoting apple variety

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Today and tomorrow, Oct. 14 and 15, the annual Apple Festival at the University of B.C. will be taking place.

A Vancouver tradition for over 30 years, and the most important fundraiser for the UBC Botanical Garden, Apple Fest offers a wealth of things to do for the whole family.

You’ll discover a great selection of unique varieties for purchase, along with apple products, apple tasting and a food fair. For the children there are informative sessions on bees, biodiversity in the environment and, of course, the giant leaf pile. It’s always a great community event.

One of the concerns of the Friends of the Garden (FOGs) who drive this event is the growing challenge of finding enough different apple varieties to showcase.

My go-to guy for all things apple-related is Harry Burton, a passionate apple grower on Salt Spring Island. His farm, Apple Luscious Organic Orchard, has over 300 apple trees representing over 250 different varieties. Burton is the key supporter of the Salt Spring Island Apple Festival just held at the beginning of October. They welcomed over 1,600 visitors who had the chance to taste and purchase from over 400 varieties of apples.

I asked Burton about the issue of declining apple inventory, and he said this was a huge concern, not only for B.C. orchardists, but also across the country and the world.

To be successful in agriculture today you need to be very efficient with high density planting and have access to a strong and expanding market to move your product. You must produce the necessary scale in numbers, with huge volumes of