Rain delays British asparagus season

Thursday, 3 May 2012 7:48 AM

The ongoing April showers mean we will have to wait a bit longer for asparagus season. According to British Asparagus, the season should start in May and 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.

The British supply is currently not at full volumes but the forecast is for temperatures to cool towards the end of the week which will slow growth again. The asparagus experts tell us that urrent predictions are that it will be another 10 days to two weeks before full UK supply is reached across all retailers.

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 that we might normally expect for that time of year.

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