Decent bloom expected for 76th annual Apple Blossom Festival

BY JOHN DECOSTE

jdecoste@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

If Mother Nature cooperates with a continuation of warm days and cooler evenings, there should be a good show of blossoms for next weekend’s 76th annual Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival.

In fact, according to Charles Embree, a research scientist in tree fruit physiology at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centre in Kentville, “there’s enough of a range of varieties that, with any luck, there should be a good show throughout the week.”

Embree noted that how large a show of blossoms we have and when they appear “is temperature- and weather-driven.” When we spoke Thursday, pear trees on the Valley floor “were just starting to come into full bloom.

“If it continues to stay cool in the evenings, there should be a good (apple) bloom by mid-week and into next weekend,” he said – or just in time for most of the Festival events. “I was in Sheffield Mills May 22 and the Macs there were in full pink.”

Embree noted that with just a short drive throughout the eastern Valley, it should be possible to see plenty of blossoms, not only apple, but late pear and plum as well.

“Outlying areas like Blomidon or Starr’s Point, or higher elevations like Morristown for example, on the sides of the mountains, tend to be two to three days behind,” he said.

With the added emphasis these days on later-blooming varieties such as Honeycrisp, “if the weather cooperates, we could have a decent bloom both this weekend (May 24-25) and next weekend as well.”