The cherry season at Rose Hill Farm, in Angus, Scotland started on the 7th of July. Most varieties have done well with good yields, except for Sweetheart.
"We have generally had a decent season considering a very difficult winter and spring," said Stead Nicolle, who grows cherries at Rose Hill Farm. "But our late variety, Sweetheart, saw an 80% fruit drop in June, which was a big disappointment as it is normally one of our best varieties and constitutes a large overall percentage of our orchards."
Stead, who sells all his crop locally in Scotland, said that he was happy with most of the other varieties. "Despite the loss of fruit in the Sweetheart, other varieties had average to above average yields and demand was good."
"We grow on a small scale in greenhouses, using the high density upright fruiting offshoot (UFO) system. Our production area consists of 3 orchard blocks. The first block was developed 13 years ago in 2011 for R&D purposes. In 2020 our business scaled up to a second greenhouse block and in January 2024 to a third block. Our target is to have 5 greenhouse blocks on 3 hectares. We are constantly trialling and tweaking our production methods to improve productivity and quality and to generally streamline our business to be resilient in a difficult growing environment," concluded Stead.
For more information:
Stead Nicolle
Rosehill Farm
[email protected]