In brief: Good quality Kent and Gunslebert cobnuts, lower yield across all varieties, higher customer demand, low yield of ennis cobnuts.
The 2020 harvest has been in full swing and there has been a very mixed picture in this generally strange year.
The harvest started very early, with the Kent cobs being mainly picked in August. The Kentish Cobs are of a very good quality, with less clustering than last year. There appears to be more clusters comprised of 2 or 3 cobnuts and this generally means the nuts are larger. In 2019, the clusters often contained 5 to 6 nuts.
The Gunslebert cobnut crop has fallen more naturally in September. The cobnuts have swollen to a lovely size and there is a very good flavour.
The Ennis crop is yet to be picked but it unfortunately looks like a poor Ennis year. Yield is much lower and so we have temporarily suspended further orders so we can try and meet pre-orders already placed. This crop baring of good and bad year’s does seem to happen ever so often with Ennis. In 2015, we had a poor ennis year. It could be because Ennis requires more consistent rainfall.
In general, the season has been much smaller than in 2019. The quality has been good for Kent and Gunslebert but the yield is much lower and this has also been reported by a number of our neighbours. It is likely that there will be more demand than supply this year and here at Roughway we have helped to supply a number of other cobnut farms that have had lower yield.
The weather during harvest has been favourable with a lot of dry weather which is good for hand picking in the sizeable trees!
Demand has been very high this year and we want to thank our customers for their loyalty and patience in face of higher demand.
