They are ready to first unfurl and then burst into a riot of pink, white, yellow and red.
They will be gorgeous, for sure.
And they will number some 10 billion.
Yes, that's billions with a 'B'.
They are the 10 billion blooms that will grace apple, cherry, peach, apricot, pear, plum and nectarine trees all over the Okanagan this month and next.
"The blossom season is about two weeks later than usual this year (because of cool weather)," pointed out Glen Lucas, general manager of the BC Fruit Growers' Association.
"So, that means apricots, the first trees to bloom are in blossom now to late April, followed by cherries, peaches, pears, plums and apples."
Blossom time in the spring is a beautiful byproduct of commercial tree fruit production.
It's part of the annual cycle of cash crops.
It starts in Osoyoos and flows like a wave up the Okanagan and into the Shuswap and Thompson with a graduated and natural, horticultural bloom schedule.
It's also an aesthetic bonanza, a tourist attraction and part of the scenery that makes the Okanagan the Okanagan.
You can simply admire the blooms as you drive by (Highway 97 through Oliver and rural roads in East Kelowna are particularly good for such gawking).
You can make a day trip out of by also including a break for lunch and stops at fruit stands.
Or people from Vancouver and Calgary will arrive specifically at this time of year for a weekend of blossom viewing, hiking, wining and dining.
Annually, fruit trees have to blossom for bees to pollinate from tiny flower to tiny flower in order for the fruit to start growing.
For apples, a cluster of five blossoms is needed to produce a single apple.
However, apple trees are thinned so that only every third cluster produces an apple, therefore it ends up taking 15 blossoms to make an apple.
That's where the mind-boggling math comes in.
In the Okanagan there are about 6,700 acres of apple orchards with each acre producing about 36,000 pounds of apples annually for a total of 240 million pounds or 600 million apples.
So, 600 million times 15 is 9 billion.
Cherries are different in that it takes one blossom to produce each cherry.
There are 4,800 acres of cherry orchards, which yield 10,000 pounds per acre for a total of 48 million pounds annually.
Each pound is made up of about seven cherries, so seven times 48 million is 336 million cherry blossoms.
Add together the 9 billion apples blossoms, 336 million cherry blossoms and the blooms from 1,005 acres of apricots, plums and peaches and 320 acres of pears and you easily have 10 billion or more blossoms.
Blossom time determines harvest time because there needs to be a certain number of weeks between blossom and ripe fruit, depending on type and variety of fruit.
For instance, for apples, Sunrise and Gala are early ripeners, while Fuji and Pink Lady are harvested later in the season.
For cherries, Van and Bing are ready early, while Lapin and Sweetheart stretch out the season with late ripening.
Therefore, these timeframes are ranges and take into account that the Okanagan stretches 200 kilometres from south to north and that blooms are two weeks later this year due to cool spring weather.
- Apricots
mid-to-late April bloom for mid-July to mid-August harvest
- Cherries
mid-April to early-May bloom for late-June to late-August harvest
- Peaches
mid-April to early-May bloom for late-July to early-September harvest
- Pears
late-April to mid-May bloom for mid-August to late-September harvest
- Plums
late-April to mid-May bloom for mid-August to late-September harvest
- Apples
early-to-late May bloom for mid-August to mid-November harvest
Lucas predicts a very light crop of apricots this year because they are the most tender of the tree fruits and had some bud damage from winter and a cool spring.
Cherries also had some of that bud damage, so blossoms and number of cherries could be down 10 to 20%.
However, the cherries that do grow and ripen are expected to be larger, so overall tonnage will be typical.
Apples have the least damage and the crop is forecasted to be normal.
"Having said that," explained Lucas, "there is a lot of weather to happen between now and harvest."
