Listen: how can fresh produce growers withstand the current heatwaves?

With a further heatwave forecast for later this week, BBC Radio Four’s Farming Today has been speaking to a Harper Adams expert about the practicalities of growing lettuce.

With the programme focussing on salad crops and fresh produce throughout this week, they began by talking to Professor of Crop Science Jim Monaghan, Director of the University’s Centre for Crop and Environmental Science, to hear about what the recent hot weather spells mean for lettuce growers.

He said: “There's a slight, counterintuitive aspect to it because crops grow and then as it gets warmer, they grow faster, and then as it gets too warm, they tend to stop and sit still - and for lettuce, that might be around about 26, 27 degrees in the field, which we've been experiencing.

“This is a challenge for salad growers - because the orders have gone through the roof and they're in a position where they're harvesting everything they've got. But the crop that should be coming up for the following week is going a little bit slower than you'd hoped, and the orders are so big that they're then having to harvest this week's crop and next week's crop at the same time. “

Professor Monaghan noted various challenges, including energy costs and labour  - and suggested actions the Government could take to ensure a continued supply of fresh produce

He added: “Simple things for now would be things like supporting irrigation infrastructure.

“We all say, ‘oh, how wet it is!’ in the winter and ‘oh, how dry it is!’ in the summer.

“So we need to capture that rain to allow us to irrigate crops, to keep feeding people healthy, nutritious summer salads, even when we're in droughts.

“I was chatting again with another business just this week, and they had taken three years to get planning permission for a reservoir that they built with within nine months.

“That's a serious investment for their business, but it means that they can keep planting crops with confidence. They're going to be able to irrigate them and get them out.

“Long term, I think we have to look more at innovations around breeding crops to adapt for these changing climates, but also looking at new ways to grow them, maybe utilising AI, utilising data better to understand how to grow the crops at the right time, in the right place.

“We're seeing some of that work and we're doing some work at Harper Adams, where we're actually looking at how you can manipulate the growth rate of individual plants in the field.”

Listen again to the whole interview on BBC Sounds.