Andrew Blenkiron is pulling out some of the sugar beets, which should be about the size of a handball by now, and says the parched conditions have stunted and dried out the root crops.
Record-breaking temperatures – as well as skyrocketing energy prices – mean the British farm he runs has had to make tough decisions about which crops to save.
“It’s about four to five centimeters (just under two inches) in diameter,” Blenkiron says, holding up some undersized sugar beets in a huge and dry field at Euston Estate Farm.
“At this point we would normally expect them to be at least 20 cm in diameter, the sugar beet,” he adds with concern.
The farm, 130 kilometers north-east of London, is now concentrating on irrigating its in-season potatoes.
But there is not enough water for the sugar beet crop left to its own devices.
In this part of Suffolk in south-east England, the soil is considered very fertile as long as it gets enough nutrients and water.
But rainfall here in July was just 10 percent of the average amount — and in the last three months it’s been just half.
– Twice as much watering –
Electricity bills at Euston Estate Farm are set to more than quadruple this year, Blenkiron, the estate director, told AFP.
That will put it in the £370,000 ($438,000 and euros) region.
While energy prices have tripled, the huge increase is also due to the large 10,500-acre (4,250-hectare) estate having to pump more water to irrigate its root crops during hot weather.
Because of the “incredible heat and incredibly dry winds,” Blenkiron says, workers would have to “probably have to water the potato fields twice as often.”
Months of exceptionally dry weather across England have taken their toll, with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) in some regions.
Owned by the Duke of Grafton for 350 years, the estate features two huge reservoirs, each typically holding 363 million liters.
But the sloping sides of one of them are currently exposed and dry, with water only at the bottom.
“We are currently expecting a drop in yield of around 50 percent,” says Blenkiron during the sugar beet harvest.
He is still hoping for rain before the sugar factory opens at the end of September, he adds.
“Sugar beets have the ability to recover quite strongly,” he says.
However, it is already too late for the dead feed corn to create a knock-on effect later in the year for the farm, which also produces wheat, barley, chickens and pigs.
– “Real challenges” in winter –
A lack of feed corn will lead to “some real challenges” in winter, says the farm manager.
Not only is it used to feed the animals, but it also fuels the farm’s anaerobic digester, which produces methane gas that is piped into the national gas grid, the farm manager says.
Rising oil prices have also caused fertilizer prices to triple and the operating costs of tractors and combines to double.
Such price increases hit the winery hard, as the sale of the 2022 harvest has already been contractually fixed.
With UK inflation set to hit its highest level since 1980 this year, Blenkiron says that if energy prices don’t fall next season, “we’ll have to pass those costs on to our customers”.
And there are more difficult decisions to be made, he warns, if it doesn’t rain enough next winter.
“We have to make some very difficult decisions about what amount of crops to plant next year.”
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