Weather, process and peas
Update from Hull. We’re flat out up here, we’ve not had the rain up here yet and we’re desperately hoping for some. It’s getting extremely dry—I’m keen to get some rain on the crops asap.
The crops are coming in very fast and we’re struggling to keep up with the increasing rate of maturity…
Why are we moaning about the weather you might well ask? Well, it’s worth noting that the whole pea growing operation—from drilling (planting) through to harvesting—works around the crops in a specific sequence (that the crops reach their peak one after the other in a sequence). We space the vines by temperature accumulation, that is, we create a map of which areas will be likely to mature first and work our plan along the subsequent maturations.
To do this, we need to measure the heat accumulation for a given area. Traditionally, we measure the high and low points with a traditional mercury thermometer and then assess the likely accumulation based on a Five-year average of temperatures.
Now, this generally works well, but if there is a significant temperature variance from the average we can get in trouble. This year we’re having a drought. In June, we had less than a fifth of the usual rainfall. Not only is the heat bringing the crop on more quickly, but the drought is impacting them as well as it brings on the rate of maturity. When that happens, our capacity for harvesting simply can’t keep up so we end up not having enough crop per day. This short supply means the factory stands idle which is equally not good as we strive to use our resources to full potential.
Well, that’s a little bit about why we’ve been grumpy about the weather…
The picture in this post is of an electronic weather monitoring station that we’ve set up in the centre of the growing area. We’re hoping this will help us put a bit more accuracy into the heat measurements—using it to measure temperature in a more thorough, scientific way (we take readings every half-hour instead of just the high/low points for the day). We’re finding it useful to build up patterns over the seasons and hopefully, this better data should help us improve the planning of the drilling sequence.
speak later.
