UK | British cherries will be the next crop to benefit from the warmest UK spring on record when the fruit starts going on sale across the UK from this week.
The great news for shoppers is that the extra sunshine and longer daylight hours over the last few months mean the fruit is not only bigger than in recent years but also sweeter and juicier.
It has also resulted in the largest predicted yield in three years, with Tesco reporting that it will be able to rely on UK-grown cherries from early July entirely.
“The extra sunshine and daylight hours have played a major part in the quality of the fruit we’ve been sampling from around the country over the last few weeks, and we know customers are going to be impressed,” said Tesco cherry buyer Olivia Amey.
“And it’s also meant that overall volume is up early in the season, meaning that we’ll be able to meet the usual summer demand for cherries solely with British produce.”
Tesco is also working with UK growers to extend the season by exploring new varieties of both early and late-ripening cherries that can deliver a classic British–grown taste – fleshy, firm, plump, and fit to burst with a significant juicy surge of sweetness.
One of those growers is AC Hulme, based near Canterbury in Kent, which was very optimistic about this year’s UK cherry season, which now lasts 10 weeks, almost double the length of just five years ago.
The UK cherry industry has undergone significant transformation over the past two decades, thanks to an increasing number of British growers achieving better yields by using dwarf rootstock, grafted onto new tree varieties.
These produce much smaller trees, which can be grown in plastic tunnels, creating a microclimate with temperatures similar to the Mediterranean and protecting the fruit from any inclement British weather.
These new, smaller cherry trees can now be picked by workers on foot rather than ladders, enabling British cherries to remain competitively priced.
It meant that UK cherry production is once again thriving and is now so strong that British growers are this year set to produce an estimated 8,000 tonnes of cherries – around four times the harvest in 2018.
Given that 559 tonnes were picked in the UK in 2015, it shows just how far the revival has come in such a short space of time.
“The British cherry industry is moving at pace again now, and new varieties are being brought in that are not only better suited to the British climate to improve quality and taste, but also to help us extend the growing season,” said AC Hulme Managing Director, Tom Hulme.
“Over the last few years, we have brought in some exciting early-season varieties such as Sweet Aryana and Grace Star, as well as exploring later season cherries such as Kir Rosso, which will extend the current season by an extra 10 days.”
Several other innovations are being used to extend the UK season, such as controlling air conditions in storage rooms post-harvest to improve shelf life, and also using different types of polytunnels to accelerate and delay cherry ripening by limiting sunlight.
“Cherries are very susceptible to the weather, and if it is too rainy or too humid, the fruit suffers, but the good news is that this year we have had pretty decent growing conditions and we are looking forward to a nice long season with the best quality fruit for several years.”
