Sunny spring has led to crop of ‘bigger, sweeter, juicier' British cherries
The sunny spring weather has created a crop of "bigger, sweeter and juicier" British cherries, growers have said. The good weather has also produced the largest predicted yield for three years, which Tesco says will enable it to sell solely UK-grown cherries from early July.
The supermarket's cherry buyer, Olivia Amey, said: "The extra sunshine and daylight hours have played a major part in the quality of the fruit we've been sampling from around the country over the last few weeks and we know customers are going to be impressed. It's also meant that overall volume is up early in the season, meaning that we'll be able to meet the usual summer demand for cherries solely with British produce.
"We're also working with UK growers to extend the season by looking at new varieties of both early and late ripening cherries that can deliver a classic British-grown taste – fleshy, firm, plump, and fit to burst with a great juicy surge of sweetness." British growers are set to produce an estimated 8,000 tonnes of cherries – four times the harvest of 2018 and 14 times the yield of 559 tonnes in 2015.
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Tom Hulme, managing director of growers AC Hulme based near Canterbury, Kent, said this year's cherry season will last 10 weeks, which is double the length of the season five years ago. He explained the country's cherry industry has been transformed by the use of dwarf root stock, grafted on to new tree varieties.
He said these produce smaller trees which can be grown in plastic tunnels, creating a micro climate with temperatures similar to the Mediterranean and protecting them from the variable British weather. The smaller trees can also be picked by workers on foot rather than ladders, therefore reducing costs.
Mr Hulme said: "The British cherry industry is moving at pace again now and new varieties are being brought in that are not only better suited to the British climate to improve quality and taste, but also to help us extend the growing season. Over the last few years we have brought in some exciting early season varieties such as sweet aryana and grace star, as well as exploring later season cherries such as kir rosso which will extend the current season by an extra 10 days.
"But there are several other innovations being used to extend the UK season, such as controlling air conditions in storing rooms post-harvest to improve shelf-life, and also using different types of poly tunnels to accelerate and delay ripening cherries through limiting sunlight. Cherries are very susceptible to the weather and if it is too rainy or too humid the fruit suffers, but the good news is that this year we have had pretty decent growing conditions and we are looking forward to a nice long season with the best quality fruit for several years."
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