Still very strong frosts in the night from Monday to Tuesday April 5 affected the vines, but also the asparagus crops. In Blayais, producers are seeing part of their harvest damaged. Other crops also suffered damage.
The Blayais asparagus season is looking bad. As in 2021, the spring frost is causing damage.
Negative temperatures for four consecutive nights caused crop damage in Gironde. “We have ten hectares of asparagus, young asparagus in the first year of harvest, and yesterday a third was frozen”, explains Angélique, a producer in Blayais for three years.
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“We are on a small harvest because the cold has slowed the growth of asparagus”, notes Angelique.
Of the 500 kilos picked up on Monday, nearly 150 kilos froze, it’s unsaleable. It is on the surface that the frost has struck, and it is the consumable and favorite part of asparagus lovers.
“It’s the tip that froze, it’s translucent. It looks like the salad in the fridge, you see. And that part will wither. The best part of asparagus is the head of asparagus and so there, we have nothing left”regrets the producer.
Cut shorter and without their heads, the asparagus are not calibrated for sale. To sell them, the producer will have to process them so as not to lose her vegetables.
See the report on asparagus victims of frost:
video length: 01min 01
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Blayais asparagus victims of frost
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©France Televisions
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In a press release, the Chamber of Agriculture of the Gironde draws up a first inventory. “The department was hit by two successive episodes of frost on April 3 and 4. And another is announced for the morning of the 5th.
If it is too early to draw up an inventory, it is certain that their consequences will aggravate the difficulties of farmers and winegrowers who have already been largely tested”.
Technicians from the Chamber of Agriculture toured the farms on Monday: they found that some buds were not or only slightly affected, others totally destroyed. “Minus 7°C: this is the temperature recorded on the night of April 3 to 4 in certain areas of the department. A temperature worthy of a month of January or February, not a month of April. The problem , is that in the vines, spring had begun. Already, the buds were swollen and the first leaves had appeared on the early plots.”.
What impact will this freeze have? “Impossible to say today, we have to wait at least a week. Because for the buds affected superficially, the vine should start again. But for those affected in the heart, it is the harvest that is compromised. For the moment, we cannot distinguish them. And as in 2021, it is very likely that we will observe in the same row or even on the same branch both buds not or only slightly affected, and destroyed buds.”
Arboriculture and market gardening were not spared either. In cultivation in southern Gironde (-5.9 degrees recorded on the night of April 4), plum trees, kiwis, apple trees are also affected in proportions unknown to date.
And if in the vineyard, the vegetation sometimes starts up again, this is not the case in arboriculture: once the flowers are frozen, there is simply no harvest. “Let’s also not forget the market gardeners and all the other sectors affected”, add the press release.
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