British asparagus season delayed by bad weather

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/04/british-asparagus-season-rain

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It's only available in the UK for a few short weeks when it is savoured for its taste and its lack of air miles. But this year, shoppers who in early May would already be buying British-grown asparagus at supermarkets and farmers' markets are to be disappointed, as growers say the prolonged rain and unpredictable weather has delayed the start of the eagerly awaited season.

Current predictions by growers are that it will be another nine days to two weeks before full UK supply of asparagus – grown outdoors – is reached across all retailers. UK shoppers spent £23.8m on British asparagus during the season last year.

The British asparagus season traditionally begins on 1 May and runs for around seven to eight weeks, until the end of June. Asparagus is very climate dependent – the soil temperature must be at least 10C before it grows - so a warm spring would mean it is possible to see the first asparagus spears on the shelves in late April.

This year the unusual weather has played havoc with crops. A spokeswoman for the British Asparagus body said that due to the high temperatures at the end of March, the earliest recorded harvest of small quantities of the outdoor crop took place in the last few days of the month: "However, as the weather dropped considerably cooler through April, production slowed (and in most cases stopped). Not only has the air temperature throughout April affected the crop but the rain has cooled the soil temperature as well compounding the effect."

British supply is still not at full volume and, although the current warmer days should give some help to crop growth, the forecast is for temperatures to cool towards the end of the week, which will slow growth again. The spokeswoman continued: "The long-term forecast for May is also not good but this does have the side benefit of spreading the asparagus supply more evenly throughout the season, which should provide more availability for the Jubilee weekend than we might normally expect for that time of year."

Many local farmers' markets plan to start selling it this weekend, but have warned that they will have little stock. At Snape Maltings in Suffolk, a small amount of locally grown asparagus will be sold at the regular monthly market. London's Borough market will be announcing a new seasonal trader selling Kent-grown asparagus which will start selling the vegetable at the weekend.

Supermarkets are also struggling to fill their shelves. A spokeswoman for Waitrose said: "British asparagus is growing more slowly than usual at the moment because of the weather, but we're selling as much as we can and will move to 100% British as soon as it's possible to do so."

Asda said it had only "minimal" amounts of asparagus: "As with all produce and especially anything British, we are unfortunately held to ransom by the British weather. Our farmers are facing challenges with the heavy rain so British asparagus hasn't reached full maturity and is around three weeks late. We do have some British asparagus in some local stores but it's minimal."

Marks & Spencer, however, which claims to be the only UK supermarket selling only British asparagus, says it has 100% availability in all its stores, grown in Herefordshire in the Wye Valley under polytunnels.