Below Average Fruit Crops Could Drive Up Prices In 2012, Says Royal Horticultural Society

Mild Winter WIll Lead To Smaller Fruit Crops, 'Could Drive Up Prices' In 2012

This year's mild winter could lead to smaller crops of fruits in the autumn, potentially pushing up prices, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) warned today.

The RHS said most hardy fruit plants need a period of cold weather during winter to encourage flowering and evidence from previous years suggests that without a "chilling period" crops are reduced.

Blackcurrants, cherries and some types of apple have a particularly strong requirement for a cold period.

The society also warned that without a prolonged winter period plants will start growing earlier and could flower early, putting them at a greater risk from late frosts in April and early May.

If they flower early, there may also be fewer pollinating insects to set the flowers, reducing the crop.

A mild winter could lead to rising prices of fruits next summer as the horticulture industry sees lower yields, the RHS suggested.

Last year saw bumper crops of fruits such as apples, as a cold winter was followed by a spring with no late frosts and a warm summer which helped fruits develop.

Experts at the RHS said the current cold snap may help, but a colder and longer period of chilly weather stretching to a number of weeks would be better to prevent plants growing and flowering too early.

Jim Arbury, RHS fruit and trials specialist at the society's gardens at Wisley, Surrey, said: "We have already seen buds on the trees beginning to swell.

"I noticed yesterday that two of our autumn-fruiting raspberries were flowering. This shouldn't be a problem as the canes will be cut to ground level in February.

"More worrying is that our blackberry cultivar 'Silvan' is also flowering and is therefore likely to have a reduced crop."

And he said: "If gardeners have only one or two fruit brushes that have started filling their buds, these can be covered with some horticultural fleece or an old curtain if it looks like there is going to be frost overnight.

"But changing weather conditions is the challenge of gardening that gardeners have to accept.

"No matter how much we tend our plants and control pests and diseases, we are still so dependent on the weather for abundant crops."

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