British strawberries are expected to have survived last week’s extreme heatwave in time for Wimbledon, but salad crops exceeded optimum growing temperatures
UK berries are expected to have tolerated last week’s heatwave ahead of the crucial peak trading fortnight across the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Industry body British Berry Growers (BBG) has confirmed it expects supply to have been largely protected, despite extreme high temperatures of almost 40 degrees in regions such as the south east of the UK.
“In terms of the heatwave’s impact on British berries, berries are more heat-tolerant than people might assume,” said BBG chair, Nick Marston.
“All four berry types are also grown commercially in much hotter climates like southern Spain and Morocco, so they can cope with high temperatures up to a point,” he said.
“The challenge isn’t a single heatwave; it’s sustained heat. If the heat persists, it can take its toll on yields, with fruit tending to ripen at a smaller average size.”
But there have been reports of growers and pickers struggling to adapt to the hot conditions. Growers turned to overnight irrigation in Kent to protect crops and workers, with some calls for support as extreme heat becomes a more common annual occurrence.
Founder of organic veg box company Riverford, Guy Singh-Watson, told customers this week that strawberry pickers were starting at 5am before being “driven from the fields by heat”.
Wimbledon tennis tournament is a key selling moment for British strawberries, with the tournament expecting to sell 140,000 punnets of berries, which it traditionally serves with cream, across the fortnight.
BBG doesn’t predict sales linked to the tournament in advance, the body confirmed.
Outside of berries, Herefordshire salad and brassica grower Ben Andrews said “all food crops will be impacted negatively” as the UK now regular matches temperatures seen in southern Europe, as climate change takes hold.
“Lettuce really doesn’t like heat – its maximum optimum growing temperature is 20C and over 24C heat stress starts kicking in. If it goes over 35C, the plant will likely ‘bolt’, which means it starts to flower and we can no longer sell it,” he said.
“We usually grow lettuce well in the UK during a ‘normal’ summer when it is too hot for the growers in southern Europe who supply us during winter. But our summers are now regularly seeing temperatures that match those in the warmer growing regions, so it’s getting increasingly difficult to plan our crops.”
