Why we could all be desperate for a pea! Shortage fears as heatwave hits harvest of one of Britain's favourite vegetables
So brace yourself for a shock – the heatwaves that so delighted sun-worshippers this year have been a disaster for the British pea harvest.
Farmers fear there will be a shortage in supermarket freezers after consistently dry weather resulted in the earliest harvest in 14 years.
In fact, the volume of picked and processed peas has fallen by up to 30 per cent this year.
However, while poor yields might be bad news for farmers in the pea-growing regions of East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, the balmy weather means those peas that do make it to dinner plates are likely to be sweeter than usual.
Birds Eye quality manager Michelle Lawrie said the sweetness of the crop 'depends on the weather', adding: 'This year in particular we've had a lot of sun, so the peas are very, very sweet this year – exceptionally so.'
The pea harvest normally begins in the middle of June and continues until the end of August, but Ian Watson, operations manager for Stemgold Peas in Lincolnshire, said it started on June 4 this year.
He added: 'We've seen challenges right from the start of the season – soils have been very dry, very hard, very difficult to work.
'We're seeing very, very thin crops. They're not going to yield.'
The company works with more than 3,500 farms across Lincolnshire, but Mr Watson said the crops had been so stressed by the weather that the number of peas in a pod had dropped.
He said that while there would normally be up to ten, many pods contain just 'two big round peas and the rest have shrivelled up and died'. He added: 'In some instances, we're going to lose crops. It's not just here. They're finding the same further south into Norfolk and east Suffolk.'
As well as damaging growth, the heat and lack of rain have boosted the bugs that attack pea pods, such as the pea moth and bruchid beetle.
Henry Moreton, a regional chairman of the National Farmers' Union in Lincolnshire, said crops had been 'drying out and dying because of the extreme heat and the lack of moisture'.
He added: 'I've never known the viners go out so early. British peas will be in short supply this year. Unless the rain does something amazing or there's a really good end to the season, we are going to look at shortages.'
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