Growers have downplayed newspaper reports that the UK could face a shortage of broccoli and cauliflower later this spring due to poor weather in Spain and heavy winter rainfall in the UK.
The Guardian quoted Hannah Croft of Riverford, who said, “Our Spanish suppliers, who grow much of our winter broccoli, have faced setbacks due to heavy autumn rain, which caused quality issues and delayed planting for spring crops. This has pushed harvest schedules forward, meaning there’s a possibility of a gap in late spring.
“UK cauliflowers have faced weather challenges including significant rainfall in autumn, which caused some losses in early crops, while mild temperatures brought winter cauliflowers ahead of schedule.”
Her concerns were backed by RHS Chief Horticulturalist Guy Barter, who said, “I think what happened here is that the plants went in at the usual time but grew mightily in the wet July and September and the very mild autumn, so their natural mechanism of timing flowering by chilling was overridden by their larger-than-usual size, hence flowering now rather than April.”
However, Nigel Clare of Peloton Produce – which grows crop sin Lincolnshire, Cornwall and Southern Spain – has commented that while crops such as broccoli and cabbage were around six days ahead of schedule over Christmas, cooler weather more recently has ‘steadied the crop.’
“In Lincolnshire, we saw temperatures go as low as -4°C and Cornwall had a touch of frost. We lost 3-4 days of cauliflower harvesting in Lincolnshire, which did set up back however, due to poor sales over Christmas our cold stores were full and so we just eradicated our stock position,” he explained. “We are back on track in the Cornwall harvesting crop, however, the soil temperatures are now very low and it will take us two weeks to get stocks back at a reasonable level this, however, could be slightly earlier if sales remain suppressed compared to other years. This means there will not be an abundance of cauliflower supply for the next two weeks, and I anticipate that by the 30th of January, we will be back on track with promotions starting again in the first week of February.
The low temperatures in Lincolnshire mean that the cauliflower in this region took a hit and the late December- early January varieties have seen some losses. However, at this current juncture, it is fair to say that varieties for late January – early February are currently looking ok, however, they do need time to recover.
“We were two weeks ahead in production, but we have not been short during the cold weather as we had plenty in stores. These stores have now been depleted, and we are back on schedule. I do have some concerns about the Savoy cabbage this year as they are smaller than normal, we will be struggling to get 500g head weights and going into February it is looking more like 450g head weights are achievable. This is a concern and we will need a kind February and early March for these crops.”