Updated 2015-05-03 16:26. Published 2015-05-03 15:58
Photo: Anders Wiklund / TT
The chilly spring creates major problems for the Swedish strawberry growers. Nocturnal frost threatens crops in the summery berry.
“It is rare ailment for years,” said the farmer Anna Wilén.
“I am very worried. We had a good winter where I live but now extends the flower buds on them and must withstand the cold night air “says Anna Wilén who runs a strawberry farm in Värmland since the millennium. She does not remember that one was been as difficult before.
“This is a really tough time, with a lot of extra work” she says and says she many nights have gone up every half hour to check the plants.
Now she using his ditresta sons. An alarm is linked to their room and when the temperature falls below three degrees, they go out and watering of the strawberries. This forms a protective coating on the sensitive flowers buds.
“But when we watering so much, we pack the soil very tightly and then there will be less oxygen and nutrients in it.”
Other farms use cover fabric, which must be taken on the day of the bumblebees.
“But at the really big farms will it is difficult to cope with all bears, “said Anders Hagberg, president of the Gro carries.
Even in Skåne, which usually have better weather conditions, there have been problems.
“Last night was the night frost, it is not good at all,” says Kenneth Jönsson, who has a culture at Tollarp.
He also cultivates in the tunnels and the berries are ready for some ten days. How it will go with the strawberries in the fields, the harvest in May-June, is unclear.
“If the flowers freeze , the harvest will be lower. Is it just the colder it becomes longer flowering and then instead all the strawberries at the same time, “he says.
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