The UK media has issued warnings about the availability of home-grown Brussels sprouts this year after an organic grower in Oxfordshire told BBC News that his crop had been attacked by a ‘plague’ of flea beetles.
George Bennet of Sandy Lane Farm in Tiddinton near Thame said his sprouts are “touch and go” after a year that had, “really pushed us to the limits”. He added, “We will still have Brussels sprouts, but they are likely to be quite small, not the big ones that are much easier to peel on your Christmas dinner.” He added that the insects had been “really pervasive,” and that as much as 70% of the leaves had been eaten.
“Typically, they are with us after spring and when it just gets into summer. So, we have about three or four weeks. The flea beetle now has been with us for about 12 weeks. At the moment, the buttons are just starting to emerge, and they really haven’t had enough water and leaf cover to really start to swell up. We’re in a situation where the yield is vastly reduced because the length of the stem is so short, but also the size of the individual sprouts are going to be very small. Do we take the cover off and let them be ravaged by flea beetles, or do we leave them on and have caterpillar and aphid problems that build up under the covers?
“Our general climate is moving from very variable weather where we didn’t need irrigation… to now we actually need irrigation. And that’s expensive. That’s where government support and funding can really help farmers to start putting into place infrastructure so that we can store over-winter rains and use it in the summer.”
Mike Hirons, CEO of Oxfordshire wholesaler Produce Warriors, told the BBC that it was too early to say whether there would be an impact on sprout supply, but warned that poor yields were also increasing the price of many vegetables including potatoes and broccoli. “What we can know is that if our prices have been high through the summer then it would not surprise me if they continue through the winter,” he said.