As the English stone fruit season begins its campaign with a healthy volume of cherries, FreshPlaza caught up with Jon Clark of Total Cherry, (part of Total Produce) to see what lies ahead for the British stone fruit growers."The English cherry crop is looking great this year, with a good amount of fruit on the trees, and some excellent large, dark, sweet and juicy fruit to be picked," explains Clark. "The Summer of 2012 was a really hard season for the UK growers with terrible weather experienced from bloom to picking that cut the crop to almost a third of its potential. However, this year could not be any more different with great bloom, fruit set, and perfect growing conditions meaning the UK industry should produce in the region of 3,500t this year."
Although there has been the odd shower, the majority of the professional cherry growers now have their orchards covered, giving the protection they need. The season had a late start this year, which has been to the benefit of the sugars and flavour, growers didn't start to pick any volumes until July 29th, with this peak expected to last for 10-14 days before finishing fairly quickly around mid August.
There will be a small amount of fruit picked into late August, and possibly early September, but the volumes there will be far less than demand. "This will also coincide with a limited amount of late cherries from Washington State & Canada whose season will finish early this year. It really looks like the Summer cherry season will be a short one compared to what we have seen in the last few years," said Clark.
Next up for the UK stone fruit growers is apricots, however this is a tale of woe for growers. According to Clark, "The UK production of apricot is relatively light, and this year more so. With an early bloom, followed by unfavourable weather many of the flowers did not set as fruit, leaving growers with the dilemma of whether it is viable to pick the fruit that is on the tree, which is estimated to be just 5-10% of a normal yield, come August 6th that decision will be made."
The last of the British stone fruit crop to be harvested is the plum crop. Like cherries, there is a bumper crop of British plums which is mainly centred in volume around the “Vic” variety, however this has been shouldered in recent years also with Jubileeum, Marjorie and Hagenta along with the traditional early Opals. Total will also have a small tonnage of greengage this year from a project on one of their farms. The plum crop is around 10 days later than normal with volumes of fruit expected in the last week of August and through September.For more information:
Jon Clark
Total Cherry
Tel: +44 1775 717180
Email: jon.clark@totalcherry.co.uk
www.totalcherry.co.uk