Growers have played down the threat of a potential drought on UK crops, despite the UK experiencing the third driest winter on record.
The UK had just 47% of its average April rainfall during the past month, and just 76% of its average seasonal rainfall during the winter, according to the Met Office, marking the driest winter since 1995-96 and prompting media headlines warning of a widespread drought across the UK this summer.
Middlesex, Mid Lothian and Fife were the driest counties during April, receiving just 12% of their expected rainfall. However, growers have hit back at concerns that the dry weather will threaten UK crops, saying an ideal season is “increasingly unusual”.
“A combination of dry and cold is not a great start to the season, ideally you’re looking to plant seeds into some moisture and a little bit of warmth to get them away”, said Jack Ward, chief executive of the British Growers Association. “But we’re not in a crisis position.
“Growers are used to dealing with the vagaries of the weather. You never quite know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
Ward said the drier weather could mean growers using irrigation systems earlier than usual, which could add costs to production, but was a regular characteristic of growing.
“A lot of growers will have access to irrigation. For sensitive crops, water at the right time is absolutely critical in terms of volume and quality. There are quite a lot of crops you’d struggle to grow effectively without irrigation. It’s an integral part of fresh produce production. Ideally, you would expect it to be a little damper than it is at the moment so you wouldn’t have to start irrigating this early in the season.”
Simon Oxley, head of crop production systems at AHDB, said it was too early to tell how the dry weather would affect yield or quality of crops. But the weather could potentially provide an “advantage” for those crops sown in the spring, such as cereals and linseed, as they would have to grow deeper roots to get moisture.
“If your spring crops aren’t established, then there’s a worry as to what the impact will be,” said Oxley. “But for the crops that are established, it’s too early to say. As long as we get good weather patterns from now on. We’ve seen in the past dry springs with good yields. A lot of it will be down to rainfall and sun in June and July.”
Asparagus, which arrived on shelves three weeks early this year, remains unaffected by the dry weather, according to growers.
Will Aveling, an asparagus grower from Badgeney Lodge, near March, Cambridgeshire, said: “The Cambridgeshire salt soil holds moisture very well. It’s the low temperatures that affect our asparagus crop, so we’re hoping for warmer days for our asparagus to thrive.”
The Met Office has predicted the dry weather is set to continue across the UK, with a possibility of rain at the weekend. “There will be some rainfall, possibly heavy in places, but that is likely to be patchy in nature and not necessarily rain everywhere,” said a spokesman for the Met Office. “So it will depend where farmers and growers are as to whether they’ll get respite from the dry conditions.”
A spokeswoman for the British Leafy Salads Association said: ”It’s been drier than in previous years over the last few months. As things stand it’s not affecting salad crops but the irrigators are busy. If the dry spell continues for a few more weeks it could affect the yield of crops that are not typically irrigated. Wet weather later in May and June would soon turn things around.
”After previous water shortages, many growers have invested heavily in water storage over the past few years and generally reservoirs are all fairly full so if there are restrictions placed on water usage there will be water available for salad crops. Growers around the country continue to work closely with the Environment Agency and other relevant authorities to ensure water resources are well managed.”
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