Hazeldene Trials

Sunday and Monday saw all hands on deck to get the majority of Hazeldene summer trials planted before the rain today.
Without the help from all the major seed houses and Len Wright Salads, we would have not finished all the planting in time. We even had Matthew Beevers from Nunhems ‘helping’, although he recently broke his leg in a football match!

Thank you to all those involved.

Grower visit

The UK weather continues to cause UK growers issues. Last week I was in Lincolnshire with one of our suppliers, and their April rainfall was 132mm (average of 37mm). Many crops were waterlogged and not growing as expected, with planting also behind schedule.

This is a UK-wide issue, but seems to be affecting the East of England more, partly due to their silt soils. After a generally good weekend, on the whole May’s weather continues to be dominated by low pressure; temperatures today have been as low as 3 degrees Celsius and snow and hail have been reported!

Having said that, growers are working really hard to ensure availability and continuity is maintained as we start to change over from Spanish and Italian supply.

UK Weather!

Since my last blog, when I mention some reservoirs being at their lowest since 1976, it has been announced that April has been the wettest on record. All our growers from all parts of England have announced large amounts of rain, but the South coast gets the record with between 175-200mm recorded for April. Considering the average yearly rainfall is about 700mm this is an unbelievable figure.

This, along with average temperatures of 6.4 degrees Celsius (approximately 5 degrees below normal) and low light levels crop growth all but stopped for much of April. This is making many crops between 7 – 14 days late; at present, change over from Spain to the UK for our whole-head crops looks on track but some growers in Spain are finishing their crops so close communication with our Spanish office is imperative.

Drought!

Today was spent with Ian Hunt, Hazeldene’s new MD, introducing him to one of our suppliers near Stratford-upon-Avon. After unsettled weather and some heavy showers, UK crops are looking a little sorry for themselves.

This season looked like a record breaking year in terms of earliness, but once again the UK weather has put pay to this! Strong winds have caused damage as covers rub against the crop, growth has almost halted and heavy rain/hail has caused damage to some baby leaf products.

It seems hard to imagine that over 50% of the UK remains under a hose-pipe ban, but what must be remembered is that two consecutive dry winters have left many reservoirs the lowest they have been since 1976.

Herbs

Last week was spent looking at herbs in Israel and Palestine. In volume terms we use a very small amount of herbs, but they are high value and important in some of our salad bags. Approximately two-thirds of our requirements come from the Middle East with the remainder coming from Spain.

The climate is generally less variable in the Middle East than in Spain, so spreads our risk of availability and quality issues. Part of the reasoning behind taking from Palestine (the West Bank) is a UK and US Government initiative to help local growers following the illegal occupation by the Israeli’s after the 6-day war, which took place in 1967.

Water is obviously a major consideration, with the majority coming, by way of a Government controlled scheme, from the Sea of Galilee in the North of the country. This is then piped throughout the rest of the country for domestic, industrial and agricultural requirements.

In February, an unprecedented cold snap that lasted most of the month left availability of crops in Spain very short. Frost damage left the whole industry short of Watercress, and Cos has only just recovered from delamination (lifting of leaf surface). Recovery took much longer than most people expected, as yields both in the field and factory were lower than predicted.

Generally, dry weather has helped with quality, frost damage aside, and warmer weather for the last three weeks means there was enough availability for increased orders due to the hot weather last week.

Dry weather in the UK has also allowed planting to stay on programme and so far, crops are looking good. Most growers have invested heavily in irrigation systems and are well set up for drier conditions, but a lot will depend on the weather over the coming months.

Lambs Lettuce

This week I have been in Nantes, Northern France, where the majority of our Lambs lettuce (also known as Corn Salad) comes from. This area is well renowned for production of Lambs and it exports over 30’000kg a year.

Historically, the Nantes region grew carrots but this has moved to the Bordeaux area and Nantes was looking for another crop. The area has plenty of water (Loire river) and a plentiful supply of sand. This sand is needed to cover the beds once drilling is completed. The benefits of this are threefold;

• Allows harvest cutting blade to get under plant meaning plant comes out whole
• Increases distance between soil and plant meaning reduced bacterial issues
• Water soaks into sand lowering humidity and quality issues

The sand used to come straight from the Loire, but this has been banned for environmental reasons, and the sand is now brought in by boat from further down the estuary.

Production is year round but concentrated in the winter. The crop is either grown in small or large tunnels, with either plastic for heat or green net for shading. The shading lowers the temperature of the sand in the summer, thus reducing scorch of the cotyledons.

Murcia, Spain

All of last week was spent in Spain looking at Seed House Trials and auditing/visiting suppliers. The trials were of interest with some new exciting varieties coming through for the next couple of years. We took a customer with us and it is always good to have the whole supply chain there; seed house, growers, processors and customer – this led to some stimulating conversations.

The latter part of the week was spent assessing crop and seeing first-hand the extent of frost damage from area to area and the implications on crop availability and quality. Some iceberg was effected 6 or 7 leaves in to the head, which is unprecedented. Weather this week in Spain looks much better but supply still remains an issue.

Jerez, Spain

Part of this week has been spent near Jerez in Spain where some of our winter watercress is sourced from. The cold weather that is being experienced in the rest of Europe is also effecting this area.

Normally Jerez experience odd frosts at -1̊ C or -2̊ C but they have had a period of prolonged cold weather and a record breaking -5̊ C last weekend. This has resulted in slower growth than usual with the -5̊ C actually scorching the crop and in some areas making the whole crop unusable.

To minimise the effects of this, crop covers have been used (hail netting and fleece) but unfortunately, with the weather this cold, the covers have only helped on ‘warmer’ nights.

With more extreme weather becoming the ‘norm’, frost combating measures are being assessed for the future; These include;
• Fans (like wind turbines but smaller) to keep air moving
• Sprinklers to keep water in the air
• Thicker covers

France
Part of this week has been spent in the Perpignan area of France visiting a supplier there. They help us to further spread our risk by having production outside the Murcia area of Spain during the winter. They tend to be smaller farms than seen in the UK and Spain and have both outdoor and protected crop.

Normally, crop is grown outside in the autumn and spring, with protected crop being grown through the higher risk weather period. This gives good uniform crop and minimal foreign bodies, but can lead to leaves that are slightly less robust.

Another advantage is that delivery is normally 2 days (as opposed to 3 days from Spain) which can help if we need product at short notice. Most salad crops are grown, but endives and escaroles are concentrated on in line with the French palate.