Mixed year for daffodils

A host of golden daffodils still in the field doesn’t necessarily mean disaster for growers – some are meant to be there to create bulbs for later.

The pandemic and leaving the EU may have made this year’s harvest interesting for growers, but it may not be all bad.

John Dring, manager of the family farm at Moulton, said they had ‘struggled a bit for labour’ as the pandemic swept through Europe and around ten per cent of his crop was not picked.

“We have people come over for the season, they don’t live here, and they weren’t able to this year,” he said.

Cold weather followed by a few warm days meant the flowers bloomed in the field and could not be picked ‘in the green’ as they should.

But Sam Taylor, of Taylors Bulbs, Holbeach, said there had been no surprises.

“We picked fewer flowers intentionally because we knew about Brexit and then there was COVID-19,” he said.

“We haven’t scaled back, next year’s bulbs are already in the ground. You couldn’t compare this year to a ‘normal’ year,” he added.