iN VIDEO: Okanagan fruit spraying in 1955 came without today’s safety gear

There was a time when Okanagan orchardists had to spend six hours just to spray chemicals on each acre of their fruit trees.

A National Film Board video, shot in 1955 at the Dominion Experimental Farm in Summerland and just recently made available, shows how the technology had evolved by that time to create single-sided spraying machines, towed by tractors that could do the job in half an hour.

A double-sided sprayer could cover an acre in only 15 minutes.

While similar sprayers are still used in Okanagan orchards today, there is a significant difference between how that work is now being done.

READ MORE: iN VIDEO: Dwarf apple trees in the Okanagan in the spotlight of this 1955 film

In the video, it shows both the hand spraying and those driving the tractors without any protective coverings – no ear protectors, gloves, waterproof coveralls, eye protectors or respirators.

The scene shot for the three-minute film, narrated by Julius Biggs, shows one tractor following fairly closely behind the spray of another.

“Always wear coveralls, waterproof boots, waterproof gloves, and a proper hat,” a current Government of BC website on personal protective clothing for pesticide handling says. “Sometimes you will also need to wear eye or face protection, respirator, waterproof apron, waterproof pants and jacket.”

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Another recently digitized National Film Board offering is a called: Okanagan – Canada’s Apple Valley.

It’s a five-minute film showing people picking apples, stacking them in what are probably 40-pound wooden boxers – not the big bins seen in orchards today – and unloaded at Kelowna Growers Exchange Plant No. 8.

There they are sorted, individually wrapped in paper, repacked in wooden boxes with attractive labels and stored for shipping.

Unfortunately, this is a silent movie since the sound reel could not be found in the National Film Board vault, an email from the board says.

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