Carrot Review

FROM THE BCGA ... Across the UK growers are continuing to harvest carrots and parsnips, lifting to orders and managing some tricky conditions. With the ongoing COVID pandemic, retail sales for carrots continued to be buoyant during 2020 and this is now coupled with the usual expected increased demand during the festive period. Parsnip demand has also been higher during 2020 and will increase exponentially over the Christmas period. In order to preserve crop quality over winter, carrot crops are generally covered with straw. Whilst the vast majority of crops have now been covered, this has been a difficult season owing to heavy rainfall episodes and also a tight availability of straw across the UK following on from a high proportion of very late or spring sown cereal crops for the 2020 harvest. A lot of straw laying has been carried “Looking forward to 2021, we hope that we can return to a more normal way of life.” CARROT REVIEW JANUARY 2021 7 out in conditions that are less than ideal and we will wait to see what impact this will have on the storability of crop during the winter. Now that strawing has been completed a period of cold, dry weather would help both harvest operations and retention of crop quality in field storage. The BCGA hosts an annual Demonstration Day in partnership with AHDB every October. Because of the Covid-19 restrictions this year, the event, like many others, has had to be held entirely online. Instead of meeting in a field in Nottinghamshire, our members met over a Zoom call and the companies demonstrating provided excellent virtual updates and presentations on their varieties and agronomy products. The BCGA extended its thanks to all those companies who ensured that the event went ahead, despite the barriers, and to the Hardstaff family who supplied the field site. ensured that the event went ahead despite the barriers. Looking forward to 2021, we hope that we can return to more normal way of life.