Blueberry farmers in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are hopeful that berries yet to ripen will have been spared by the recent heat wave that enveloped the region at the end of June.

Berries that had already ripened, like the Duke variety, the earliest of the blueberry varieties, were most susceptible to the hot temperatures with many of the berries drying up like raisins.

Ting Wu, owner and operator of Formosa Nursery, a certified organic farm in Pitt Meadows that also grows raspberries and other fruits, saw a lot of damage from the heat.

鈥淭he plant still seems not too bad but the fruit is damaged,鈥� he said, adding that it鈥檚 the worst he has seen in 40 years.

Austin Doong with Doremi Blueberry Farm said his berries won鈥檛 be ripe for another week and for that he is thankful. Damage to his blueberries is minimal, he said.

鈥淯sually they are a lot more resilient when they are green,鈥� said Doong, who grows the Blue crop variety.

Once blueberries become bigger and plumper, they become like a raisin when they suddenly become dehydrated, he described.

A heat dome engulfed the Pacific Northwest on June 25, with rare thermal conditions that did not allow for cooling overnight.

Environment Canada reported an all-time high of 41.4 Celsius in Pitt Meadows on Monday, June 28, the peak of the heat wave, which shattered the old record of 37.6 C set in 2009. In fact, records were broken three times over that weekend with 40 C temperature on Sunday and 37.8 on Saturday at the Pitt Meadows weather station.

Navdeep Middar, operations manager at Twin Berry Farms, that has been operating in Pitt Meadows for 36 years, saw a lot of her early berries dry up. She calls them soft berries.

鈥淲e鈥檙e still picking, but it鈥檚 not the capacity where it was last year,鈥� she explained.

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People who come to her farm for you-pick, can still pick from the early varieties, Middar said, but the berries that went soft, workers have to spend valuable time removing.

鈥淭hen it becomes third grade or a juice berry. And having that type of grade so early is not common,鈥� she noted, adding that they lose out not only because they have to work harder to remove the berries, but because the berries are not worth as much.

It鈥檚 still too early to tell if the later varieties that were not so advanced in the ripening stages might come out OK.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to say,鈥� said Jack Bates, past chair of the B.C. Blueberry Council and a grower in Delta. He said there was less damage done to the crops in Delta than in other regions. However, when temperatures hit the upper 30鈥檚, into the 40鈥檚, he said there is going to be damage.

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The heat wave ended the strawberry season quickly, and raspberries, he noted, never really got a chance to start growing.

鈥淎t least the saving grace that we might have hope with the blueberries, the later varieties are still green and will ripen later in the month,鈥� said Bates.

鈥淗opefully they鈥檒l be OK.鈥�