The German Central Bureau of Statistics have announced the final figures of the open ground vegetable harvest of 2011. Compared to 2010 the growing area increased by 0.8% to 107,000 HA. The German vegetable growers harvested about 231,000 tons of vegetables more than in 2010, an increase of 7.3%. The average yield of the last six years of about 3.16 million tons was exceeded by almost 7%.
Because of the EHEC-crisis part of the vegetable crop in 2011 (especially lettuce, cucumber and tomato) could not be sold. All saleable vegetables are included in the harvest figures, independent of the fact whether they were indeed marketed or not. The vegetables already destroyed on the field or used as fertilizer or fodder were not included.
When looking at single kinds of vegetables carrots were the kind of vegetable harvested most of all in Germany in 2011. About 533,700 tons were harvested. In second and third position are white cabbage with about 506,700 tons and consumption onions with about 505,600 tons. These two kinds of vegetables also gave an exceptionally high yield per HA. which was also the case with asparagus.
For the cultivation of vegetables under high passable roofs (e.g. foil glasshouses) an area of about 1,300 HA was used, 1.2% less than in 2010. The quantity harvested was about 152,700 tons of vegetables, almost 7% less than in 2010.