Ginseng growers make repairs in storm's aftermath

Thursday, May 26, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario’s ginseng growers sustained millions of dollars in damage after a fierce spring storm packing 90-kilometre-an-hour winds blew through the Norfolk County area last month.

Doug Bradley, president of the Ontario Ginseng Growers Association, says ginseng growers typically open their shades at that time of year. Most of the 140 ginseng farmers had one-third to one-half of their acres of shades open. When the storm roared through on April 28 it tore the fabric, ripped shade houses to shreds and smashed posts.

Bradley says it was very difficult to find someone who had his or her shades open that didn’t have damage due to the storm. In addition, it takes time to do repairs.

On Bradley’s farm near Scotland, it took him two-and-a-half weeks to put the shade houses that were open back together “before we could get on with finishing up what we would normally be doing.”

The storm set everybody back by two to three weeks. Normally farmers do repairs to the cloth in the winter. “Most people don’t have time to fix it now,” he says.

In many cases, the damage can’t be fixed and farmers will have to replace broken shade houses. But for now farmers straightened up their shade houses as best as they could. Other jobs, such as pesticide and fertilizer applications, had to take priority because they have to be done during the first week of May.

As for the crop itself, that wasn’t damaged because it was still under the straw when the storm hit. Bradley says growers had to work quickly to cover their crops with the shades in time so the sun wouldn’t burn it when it emerged from the ground or it wouldn’t be damaged by frost.

Currently the crop doesn’t look too bad. “Everything’s looking pretty good,” he says.

About 1,500 to 2,000 acres were open when the freak storm hit. A total of 6,000 acres of ginseng are grown in Ontario, mostly in Norfolk, Brant and Oxford counties.

Some farmers have insurance on their shade houses and cloths while others don’t. Bradley says he has been growing ginseng for 25 years and has never before had the kind of damage caused by the April 28 storm. BF