All over the world drought and not enough water for irrigation.From the weather news, Victoria Australia.
Bitter broccoli, smaller potato crops amid prolonged dry weather in west Victoria
18 hours ago
Although the broccoli is growing, a lack of water is making the plant too bitter to sell. (ABC Everyday: Matilda Marozzi)
A farmer in south-west Victoria has ploughed hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of broccoli made bitter by dry weather back into the paddock.
Ben Pohlner runs an organic fruit and vegetable farm, Volcano Produce, at Illowa just west of Warrnambool.
He said although the broccoli was growing, the lack of soil moisture was ruining the flavour of his brassicas.
"The broccoli has gotten water stress and gone bitter — we've had crop after crop fail on us this year, especially over summer," he said.
"We still get the nice broccoli or cauliflower head on them but it's practically inedible, it's too bitter to eat.
"We just plough it back into the ground, we can't afford to ruin our reputation over a few crops."
Bitter broccoli
Mr Pohlner said he had not been able to sell any edible broccoli since September.
"You're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars [lost] — $40,000 to $50,000 per crop." he said.
"We need 100 millilitres of rain at the very least and that's just to get some water down deep enough to get the brassicas established.
"Even though we've taken a big hit financially from the brassica crops, we've got plenty of other crops here — we grow around 70 different varieties of fruit and vegetables.
"Strawberries are actually our main crop, which have done pretty well, as have carrots, beetroot, garlic, capsicums, chillies and eggplant."
Mr Pohlner said there were new broccoli crops of between 10,000 to 20,000 plants coming through every fortnight.
"It's a reasonable amount there, we're not a big farm by any means we're just a small chemical-free farm," he said.
"Normally with the brassicas we have plenty of moisture deep down in the soil, but this year we had a really dry winter.
"We've had to irrigate all the way through, which is hard for us because we don't have sufficient [access to water for] a large volumes of plants."
Large-scale suppliers contacted by the ABC with more extensive resources and irrigation infrastructure had not experienced the same issues, but other smaller operations in western Victoria had also experienced bitter broccoli.
Poor potato crops
Meanwhile, a potato grower near Ballarat said millions of dollars' worth of farmgate value had also been due to the extended dry spell.
Some growers have not put a crop in at all this season, while others have rationed water as irrigation dams run low.
Kain Richardson from Newlyn said he had not experienced a dry stretch like this since the millennium drought.
"It's been an exceptionally dry eight months, it's been a massive change in seasons," he said.
"There has been a huge dependence in the district on underground water and bores.
"Yields will be down a little bit, I don't know if there will be much impact to the quality, it's hard to say until the harvest kicks off this week.
"I'd estimate that two or three million of farmgate value that's been lost out of the district."
Industry sources said overall potato supplies were strong and processors were not expecting any price rises for hot chips or fresh potatoes.
ABC
And where I am they are planting houses on beautiful black soils that rarely need irrigation. Crazy
Last year and this year, it gets a tiny handful of flowers. Like less than 10, if that... I don't have a clue why it won't flower. I have fertilized it well for flowering. Doesn't seem to matter.
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