Chris Chinn from Cobrey Farms in the Wye Valley explained that a hard frost would destroy any asparagus tips above the ground and therefore knock back harvest for a week, but generally they don't get such a hard frost.
"The frost will generally just cause any exposed tips to bend and darken in colour and it will certainly slow down production," he said. "We had 1 degree last night which will set the crop back a bit but there was no damage to the asparagus."
"More worrying is the effect on our blueberry and bean production. The blueberries are at a delicate stage in flowering and it could do pretty significant damage. The tunnel and outdoor crops are flowering and the fine beans are also grown outside and at a delicate stage, we don't really have any mechanism to protect them. There are options but we are only expecting the temperatures to drop to around one degree, if they were going down as far a -5 or something then we would certainly have to act. These temperatures are not being forecast."
The Wye Valley is in Herefordshire in the west of England where it is generally milder and they benefit from warm air off the Atlantic.
For more information:
Chris ChinnCobrey Farms
Tel: +44 (0) 1989 562770
Email: chris@cobrey.co.uk
www.cobrey.co.uk