Many growers still hedge their forecasts in view of the cool spring. But positive elements like increasing demand and a good price lead in from French imports have created some optimism in the carrot sector.
In spite of last year’s travails, planting has remained fairly consistent at around 9,000 hectares with good establishment conditions.
“It was a bit stop/start at the beginning of the growing season but it all depends on the weather in the next few weeks as they come to mature. The next few days are critical,” says Martin Evans, chief executive of Fresh Growers and chairman of the British Carrot Growers Association.
“This has been fairly well spread over all growing areas, with early drilling under reasonable conditions. Once we start, quality should be quite good for the rest of the season with good packhouse potential.”
UK producers have been intent on extending the production season but the market continues to have to depend on imports in late spring with the attendant risk that variable quality produce from Spain and France could put off consumers.
“We are very proud of our British carrots because they are at least of consistent quality,” says Mr Evans.
His optimism has been confirmed by Marks & Spencer, which appears set to close the seasonal late spring “hungry gap”.
“Normally we go to France around this time of year to see if the over-wintered stock is good enough. Early season French material doesn’t have a lot of taste.” says Hugh Mowat, vegetable technologist.
“Our customers are very conscious of flavour in their selection and where possible they prefer the home-grown product.
“We have an extensive taste testing operation. We are still in the middle of our carrot testing but it seems that from the results so far we will be able to go from over-wintered Scottish stock straight onto carrots from Suffolk this year. We are 99 per cent sure of this.”
Warren Hunter, director of Huntapac Produce, near Preston, expects to start lifting new season crop today (June 10) on the 2,100 acres the company grows across the UK.
“It would be wrong to speculate on quality and yields this early in season. It all depends on the weather over the next four or five months,” he says.
But he is encouraged by the continuing strong trade demand for carrots and the slight increase in consumption. “As long as the UK crop is of the right quality, retailers want to stock the home product,” he added. “We’re not getting over-optimistic but, while we could always do with a bit more money, I can’t see why we should not have a fair year.”
The UK’s biggest root vegetable supplier, Albert Bartlett & Sons, is also reasonably optimistic about this year’s crops both north and south of the Borders. With bases at Airdrie in Scotland and in Cambridgeshire, the company is said to supply 10 per cent of the nation’s root vegetable needs, ranging over potatoes, carrots, onions and parsnips.
Harvesting on the 4,500 acres of carrots it grows throughout East Anglia and in Angus in Scotland will probably start in around a week’s time and Alan Bartlett, joint managing director, says they are “looking good”.
It is currently investing around £8 million in its Cambridgeshire operations, which include a steadily expanding acreage of the increasingly popular sweet-tasting Chantenay variety. This now accounts for just under 10 per cent of the company's total carrot production.
“We ended up the last season with a good crop from our Scottish operations and this year’s English crop looks at least equally good,” says Bartlett. “Prices have held up pretty well so there is no reason to be pessimistic about the future.”
Like all producers, Bartletts is keen to exploit new varieties. Tony Hewitt, director of vegetable seed with Elsom Seeds, predicts a growing taste for Chantenay, which the multiples have taken up keenly.
“This used to be the type that went for the canning industry. But now it’s been re-invented for the fresh market,” he says.
“As far as the pre-packs are concerned, this market is dominated by Nairobi from the Bejo group. It’s probably got 50 per cent of the market share.
“The other thing that has attracted a lot of interest in recent years has been the coloured carrots, like the purple carrot, which is high in antioxidants. This gives an additional health factor for the crop in addition to beta-carotene.”
Other colours, such as yellow and white and multicoloured varieties, which go from white through to orange, are also gaining interest, although still probably niche oriented. Further development is likely to depend on retailer push.
Imperator retains a strong following in the snack market, although its impact in the UK has failed to match up to its US success.
Hewitt says: “There are always new varieties coming through, although Nairobi has been dominant for the past 20 years. As supermarkets are looking for year-round supplies we are looking for varieties that are strong at the start of the season and through to the end.
“We have also been looking at the store-ability of various varieties and tastes and flavours afterwards for the last couple of years. This not only extends the season but probably offers better quality than leaving them in the ground.”
Growers are probably more full of hope rather than of confidence for a better season this year, according to consultant David Martin of Plantsystems.
“Last year was certainly difficult with a short supply position against a good demand. But packers were working on fixed prices which meant that while retail prices were quite strong, growers’ returns showed no improvement,” he says.
“We are coming out of the last of the Scottish crop while the English may be a little later because of the cold spring and there is still crop to be drilled in Scotland. But there is hope for this year.
“Retailers are looking for improved quality, continuity and value, particularly at lower prices to producers. Producers must be aware of this and aim to reduce wastage as far as they can.
“Five years ago, a five per cent wastage might have been tolerable. Nowadays five per cent wastage is five per cent losses.
“We are still looking at chemicals to combat carrot fly because there are no effective biologicals available. But there are also various cultural strategies that growers can employ,” says the Horticultural Development Council’s Dr Rosemary Collier.
Pyrethroids remain the first weapon in the grower’s armoury, but there are fears this may not be sustainable in the long term. For this reason entomologist Dr Collier has just embarked on an HDC-financed “desk trawl” of alternatives, including physical fence barriers.
She hopes to have produced some clues by mid-summer but remains cautious about forecasting the presence of another chemical “magic bullet” to take over from pyrethroids. It all depends on approvals for use on edible crops.
Cavity spot remains a major problem for growers in spite of some signs that metalaxyl would provide a solution. However, under a new Defra-funded research project, researcher Dez Barbara feels he will make progress by following a soil molecular analysis plan.
The four-year project, which has just got under way, will depend on a recently developed test to quantify the relevant causal pythium fungus. Again, the presence of a magic bullet of treatment may be over-optimistic.
“Really, it is about understanding the underlying biology and also developing the tools to apply that biology to the crop. But we should be able to develop rational ways to manage the disease,” he predicts.
John Ward, product development manager with Clause Tezier, sees climate change as one further problem with which growers will have to contend.
“Every year throws up different problems or agronomy challenges with the carrot crop,” he says.
“The varying climatic profiles present each company’s variety range with a strong test and the varieties within each range will behave differently from year to year.
“These differences will throw up strengths and weaknesses within each variety and this will in turn allow opportunities to be created for new varieties to be introduced which are better adapted to the zone and its macroclimate agronomy and market need.”
The company’s breeding and selection programme has seen the rapid ape up of variety’s like Trevor, Ulyses and Artemis, but others, such as Cybele F1 and Osiris F1, are emerging from the pipeline and aimed at extending the season.
“Together, these two varieties make carrots that have that extra length and boldness that fulfil the larger carrot specification of the main supermarkets but still retain the high quality tops and skin for good presentation,” he says.
Global warming brings both threats and benefits to UK production, says Nick Bolton, product development manager with Nickerson-Zwaan.
“Milder autumn and winter conditions may result in less prolonged periods of frost in certain areas of the UK, such as the East Anglian coastal areas,” he says.
This may favour the new Eskimo hybrid frost-resistant variety from Vilmorin. This allows growers to delay the strawing of crops well into the late autumn or early winter period, saving huge labour costs. Four new varieties from Vilmoris will be on show at the British Carrot Growers’ Association open day on October 6.
Against a background of possible new scientific advances, Guy Poskett of MH Poskett at Killington, near Pontefract, keeps a weather eye open and expects lifting to start in that area around June 18 or 19.
A main supplier to Asda, he forecasts a continuing growth in demand for Chantenay although he also expects to see organically grown varieties continuing to show an upward swing.
Simon Pearce, of Alfred G Pearce, which handles around 40,000 tonnes of produce a year, also remains confident about the future. The company is intent on building up its share of the market this year and is looking to build up its Kings Lynn operation.
RJ Herbert Engineering of Wisbech, Cambs, is hoping this will include further investment in the sort of automation products it supplies. This includes the Carrot Autosort electronic sorting and grading machine as well as the T Rex cleaner-loader, developed in conjunction with the Albert Bartlett group.
The Autosort is the latest development in Herbert optical grading system and is currently under commercial testing.
NEW PROJECTS ON CARROTS AT WARWICK HRI
Carrots are susceptible to a number of pests and diseases; two of the most important being carrot fly and cavity spot. Both problems are now being addressed in new projects at Warwick HRI.
Since the mid 1990s, carrot fly has been controlled with pyrethroid insecticides applied either as seed treatments or foliar sprays. Although the efficacy of the seed treatment has been questionable at times, there is no doubt that the foliar sprays have been extremely effective. However, complete reliance on insecticides from one chemical group may not be a sensible strategy in the longer term. For example, although there is currently no evidence that carrot flies are resistant to pyrethroids, there is a risk that insecticide resistance may develop in the future.
The Horticultural Development Council (HDC) has recently commissioned Rosemary Collier to review current practice in the UK and elsewhere and evaluate new control strategies for the future. Several novel insecticides have become available in the last few years and may be effective against carrot fly. There may also be new strategies for non-insecticidal control. The review will be completed during the summer and will be summarised in HDC News and in a factsheet.
Soilborne pathogens remain among the most intractable problems for horticulture and one of them, cavity spot, is considered the major disease for carrots in the UK. Losses in bad years are estimated at £20-30 million per annum from a crop of £100m-£150m marketed value. For growers, cavity spot is particularly difficult as any visible lesions are liable to lead to rejection during grading, meaning that virtually 100 per cent control is required. In the UK it has been thought that the disease is caused mainly by the oomycete fungus Pythium violae and occasionally by the related Pythium sulcatum. Recent Norwegian work suggests that a complex of five Pythium species may actually be involved. Metalaxyl has been used for disease control but in some soils enhanced degradation of the fungicide is making it increasingly less effective.
Progress towards better and more sustainable control has been hampered by an almost complete lack of knowledge of the basic biology in the soil of Pythium violae and similar slow growing species, mainly due to the lack of an effective test to determine pathogen levels in situ. A Defra funded project started at Warwick HRI in April 2005, in collaboration with the Norwegian team, aims to revolutionise our understanding by utilising tools developed using modern molecular biological approaches (primarily the highly quantitative and sensitive real-time polymerase chain reaction). The project is led by Dez Barbara.
Despite many years of research, much remains unknown about the complex of environmental and other factors (such as temperature, moisture, organic residues, current crops, past cropping regimes, carry-over of inoculum) affecting the growth and infectivity of Pythium violae, and the other species that may be involved in cavity spot, in soils. By using novel approaches to measuring the amount of fungus directly in the soil, it intends to provide the basis for devising more rational and effective control measures for this very important disease.
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