A swath of cherry trees in Naramata is being cut down.
About 80 trees will be removed from the Naramata Centre, a 23 acre parcel of land in the centre of the village. The trees have been around for decades.
Officials had hoped to keep the trees but now say they must be chopped because they were unable to remove a pest that had begun infesting neighboring cherry trees. They tried spraying the trees but the pests kept coming back.
Get breaking National news
“There is a fly called the little cherry disease that affects these trees,” said Janet MacDonald with the Naramata Centre.
MacDonalds says spraying the trees for the last three years did not remove the bugs.
“There is potential to affect other trees in the valley here and we did not want to be accused of wiping out the cherry crop in the Okanagan,” she said.
The bug makes the cherries smaller. The pests also use the fruit as incubators to reproduce.
Officials say the land will sit dormant for about a year after the trees are removed.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.