NIGEL AKEHURST VISITS: PIPER CHERRIES
PROTECTING CHERRIES
WITH POLYTUNNELS This month Nigel Akehurst visits award-winning family farm business Piper Cherries in Loose, Kent, to meet father and daughter team Brian Piper and Rachel Sands.
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I met Brian Piper and Rachel Sands at their main Hubbard’s lane growing site, where they also sell direct to the public from two farm stalls. Unlike the cherry orchards of old, with towering 40-foot trees, all their trees are grown under polytunnels on dwarfing root stock. Mainly Gisela 5, some Gisela 6 with a few remaining Colts, explained Rachel. In the past the fruit used to be small, soft and red – the modern varieties of cherries are large, firm and black when ripe. By growing the trees under polytunnels and using nets, they are able to protect their crop from birds and heavy rain or hail, which could wipe out an entire crop. That’s not to say they aren’t affected by the weather. This spring, Brian and Rachel spent most of April
fighting the late frosts with their new tractormounted Frostbuster, a gas powered heater with a large PTO-driven fan to blow hot air up to 70 metres along the tunnels. Rachel, a trained biochemist who previously worked as a research scientist before joining the family business six years ago, used an app on her smartphone to monitor the weather stations located at each growing site. Receiving frost alerts most days in April, she spent her nights operating the Frostbuster F252 at high tractor revs. Though the majority of local residents were understanding, they did receive some complaints about the excessive noise, added Brian. Thankfully this year’s crop looks fairly promising, considering the extreme weather, Rachel said,
> Brian Piper and Rachel Sands
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though yields are predicted to be down at least a third on 2020, which was a particularly favourable growing year.
AWARD-WINNING SOFT FRUIT
The Piper family grows around 25 acres of cherries across two sites and prides itself on producing top quality fruit. They grow 30 varieties, Rachel explained. “We’re pretty unusual in that,” she said. “But it gives us a very varied mix and works well for us…however, it takes practice to have control over all the variables! “Dad has won Champion Basket a huge number of times at the National Cherry and Soft Fruit Show, but more recently I was exceptionally pleased to win a Taste of Kent award for cherries two years in a row. And to win all of the classes we entered
