HOME            COMPANY    PRODUCTION     PACKING     PROTOCOLS  CONTACTS  MESSAGE PROFILE CUSTOMERS PDO NEWS RECIPES SEASONALITY SEED PLASTIC PESTICIDES HARVESTING ORGANIC GROWERS ENVIRONMENT AUDITS EDUCATION 01/07/2008 Season Update 2008 has been a very challenging s(...) Read more... 13/05/2008 A Star is Born! The Morrisons DVD which was filmed(...) Read more... 13/05/2008 Harvesting Begins in Earnest After the poor weather of March & (...) Read more... 28/03/2008 1st Outdoor Harvest of 2008 The first outdoor crop of the seas(...) Read more... 28/03/2008 Morrisons to Film in Jersey On Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th of (...) Read more... 28/03/2008 Planting Update Planting of this year’s export cro(...) Read more... PESTICIDES & FERTILISER Some ten years ago the Island was renowned for producing early crops, not only of potatoes but also of other crops such as flowers, tomatoes, calabrese and courgettes. Many of these crops were grown as a second crop following the Jersey Royal crop and thus were grown intensively using large amounts of inorganic fertiliser and pesticides. In more recent years globalisation of food production has made many of these crops unviable to grow. The Jersey Royal potato crop remains and thus following this crop the land can be rested and “green manure” crops are grown after the potatoes which binds the soil together and which are also ploughed back into the soil allowing the fertility of the land to build up. As a consequence we are able to use lower levels of inorganic fertiliser. We still also fertilise our fields using vraic, the local name for seaweed, that is washed up o the Islands beaches during winter storms. The vraic is removed using tractors and trailers and tipped on the field where it is still spread by hand. We also ensure that any pesticides that we use on the crop are only applied when absolutely necessary and that more traditional and cultural controls are used wherever possible. When pesticides are used we only apply them when a specific threshold is exceeded whereby economic damage to the crop may result if the fields re left untreated and then the least environmentally harmful pesticides are applied. In many cases new technologies are employed to determine the need for pesticides. For instance the Company has four regionalised infield whether station that monitor the weather conditions across the Island. This information together with gowth recordings and application data is fed into a computer prediction model that tells us when we need to treat the potatoes against diseases such as potato blight and what pesticides to use. This information is updated twice daily, seven days a week and has led to a reduction in blight pesticides used over the past five years. All staff are fully trained and use the latest equipment which is regularly maintained and inspected. All sprayer operators are members of the National Register of Sprayer Operators and the technical team are qualified agronomist being both FACTS (Fertiliser Advisors Certificate Training Scheme) and BASIS (British Agricultural Standards Inspection Scheme) qualified. Applications of all inputs and control of harvesting is maintained under central control with regular meetings between the key staff responsible for each area of production. Home | Company | Production | Packing | Protocols | News | Recipes | Contacts