Blackcurrants

Blackcurrants have been grown at White Heron since the 1880s even if originally on a kitchen garden scale. Post war we were part of the cohort that started growing blackcurrants for Ribena – the start of a long and fruitful relationship!  Blackcurrants are a hardy and deciduous shrub with a delicious fruit and well looked after they can last for up to 20 years. In plantations of up to 20 acres (we have a total of 150) of varying ages and different varieties.  As the years have gone by the process has become more and more automated and the tractors and machinery considerably more advance, using GPS and field soil mapping to optimise results. More detailed information can be found next to the photographs below. For other parts of the farm go to whole farm, environment, blackcurrants, apples, vineyards, other enterprises and White Heron Drinks.

Planting

Blackcurrant planting happens when the plant is completely dormant. Blackcurrant cuttings are supplied to the farm in bundles of 100 from professional nurserymen and every plant is certified. These cuttings are planted at around 3000 shoots per acre. The field is prepared by ploughing and cultivating to give a good seed bed. This is usually done when the ground is not saturated so that the blackcurrant shoots can send their roots out into the surrounding soil. It can be very cold on a clear cold February day so hot drinks are essential (!), but we can plant around 4 acres per day as long as light allows - that's at least 12000 plants. The rows are designated by GPS (global positioning satellites) so you can guarantee all inter-rows are the same width and are entirely parallel. Planting is automated where rotating wheels drop each small shoot (or bush) into a small trench.

The planter is an old cabbage planter and it is exacting work that requires concentration and you cannot miss a trick. The man who comes along behind is feeding each plant to the person on the machine, and if they miss a shoot on the wheel then he keeps an eye on the row behind.

Varieties: we have 7 different varieties at White Heron Estate. They are all named Ben (mountain in Scotland) as they are bred in Scotland. Remember these - Ben Gairn, Ben Hope, Ben Starav, Ben Laws, Ben Alder, Ben Vane, Ben Avon, Ben Lui, Ben Dui and one the odd one out Klibrek! The varietes are bred for different agronomic qualities, vitamin C, bush habit, disease resistance - particularly big bud mite and reversion, sugar levels, yield just to name a few qualities. They all harvest at different times which helps spread the harvest season, see below.

After planting the alleyways and field margins are seeded with grass, and weeds are controlled.

Blackcurrant Operations

We minimise spraying for pests and diseases (some sprays are necessary to control fungi, mildew, bugs, and weeds), but we are a conventional farm. It would be nearly impossible to grow modern plantations organically. As you can imagine the MRLs -minimum residue levels - are very strict from Ribena and the time between spraying and harvesting are longer than may usually be required. We rarely have any detectable level of spray content. As far as possible we also use predatory insects that would eat the pest that we have seen. Bugs like ladybirds are extremely useful, and of course bees are essential whilst the crops are in flower so we do as little as possible to cause any damage to these lovely bugs.

Here you can see a driverless tractor, which although it worked was not as successful as it might have been. If it got knocked off track by more than 6cm you had to attend site - so in the end, not really workable as we had hoped that it would save some labour. Jo has always been a prime mover on innovative technology, but here it didn't quite work out.

We mow all the alleyways 3 or 4 times a year to keep the weeds down and stop competition growth, often spraying and mowing in the same operation. During the winter all our plantations are also mechanically pruned, either with a blade on the tractor which goes down the side of each bush or sometimes with a special centre pruner which opens up the middle of the bush to let the light in. We want to ensure that the bushes are kept healthy in all respects with vigorous new growth on which the fruit will form the next season.

Harvesting

We harvest berries from early July to mid-August using mechanical harvester. The harvester straddles and shakes the bushes, and fans remove any leaves. Quality controllers check for sugar levels, quantity, and quality and the berries are checked for alien bugs, snails and sticks and leaves. Fruit is then conveyed into bins on a tractor and from there transported in 3 tonne batches to our central yard. It's loaded onto the Ribena lorries and picked up asap to go to Thatchers for pressing and then on to the factory. Quality control includes measuring of Brix - this is the sugar level in the berry and we are also judged on quality by the factory.
We usually achieve at about 99% average over the season.
Our quota at the Whittern is 350 tonnes and some years we exceed this. Most of the crop goes to Ribena, with a small portion reserved for our British Cassis liqueur.

The yield averages about 3 tonnes an acre on fruiting plantations although on some varieties some years you might achieve an amazing yield of up to 6 tonnes per acre. Some of the crop falls on the floor as the machine can't catch it all, but every berry is worth catching. We produce around 350,000,000 berries per year. Depending on the variety they are slightly different size and sweetness, but all jog on into that delicious Ribena.

Relationship with Ribena

Ribena have been an amazing customer over many years. Always recognising that we have a cost of production, not least for our direct costs, but also for our machinery, depreciation and land costs, they pay us at a level that supports investment.

They also have a breeding programme with the James Hutton Institute (The Scottish Crops Research Institute) where they pay for the programmes that develop the varieties that work best for them and the growers alike. Ie good agronomic values, good bush habit, high vitamin C content, disease resistance, bush longevity, high yielding etc.

A member of the Ribena team regularly visits the farm to check that all is well; and Jo also has a great relationship with the marketing team as she is currently chair of the Blackcurrant Foundation which works hard to raise awareness about blackcurrants. We discuss the advertising campaigns, the new product development and our British credentials, heritage and provenance are used as part of their marketing strategy.

Blackcurrants and the Environment

It's very important to us at Whittern Farms, that we support the environment. With Ribena we have a six point plan that supports diversity through a relationship with the Wildlife Trust. 1. This involves grass alleyways and headlands, rather than bare earth, providing an environment for little bugs and green grass and binds the soil together. Often the alleyways are full of nitrogen fixing clover or pretty buttercups. 2. The hedges are only cut two years in five to host as many birds as possible. 3. The edges of every field have wild flower margins of at least 2 metres to encourage birds and bees, butterflies and invertebrates. 4. For every hectare of blackcurrants we have a bird box. These are for anything from owls to tree sparrows and are of differing shapes and sizes. 5. For every hectare of blackcurrants we plant a new tree and finally 6. we encourage particular species that are prevalent in our area. For us this is a sort of bee!