Leading Irish producer Keelings is preparing to harvest the first of its home-produced peppers, grown as part of an €8.2 million project.
David Keeling, md of Keelings Farms, said the company is planning to start harvesting the first green peppers in early march, with red and yellow coming on stream from the end of April.
The company invested in 5 hectares of state-of-the-art glasshouse production, which it claimed is the first of its kind in the Irish republic. Keeling said he expected to get around 15,000 tonnes of peppers from the facility.
The company, which had taken a stand at Fruit Logistica in Berlin for the first time, had imported the system and growing techniques from Holland.
Keeling said he is pleased with the project, although they expected yields to be slightly lower this year.
“It’s the first time we’ve done it and I think the yields will be less than expected by about 10 per cent. We’re still adapting a Dutch system to the Irish climate and it’s a very complicated process.”
He said Keelings doesn’t anticipate any difficulty marketing the product, and said he expected good demand from both retail and wholesale.
Meanwhile, he said a €500,000 trial to grow winter lettuces under glass had proved more challenging.
“We were growing Cos, Romaine and some Chinese leaves using hydroponic technology in Dundalk. We’ve been through our first winter now and we had a hell of a lot of problems.”
He said yields were only around 40 to 50 per cent of what the company had hoped for, but said it would continue to develop the trial.
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