A WATERCRESS company with a farm in Dorset is growing the salad vegetable in a 'unique way' to help with countrywide supply shortages.

With many UK supermarkets limiting the number of fresh vegetables customers can buy, one crop grown near Dorchester has been able to ride the storm.

Spain, where many winter vegetables and salad crops are grown for the UK market, has been hit by bad weather and transport disruption resulting in widely reported shortages of fresh produce. 

The Watercress Company, which has farms in Waddock, Dorset and in Old Alresford, Hampshire, moved a team of British experts to Jerez in Spain 20 years ago to train farmers there in the skills needed to grow watercress for the UK market. 

Spain is now the second biggest grower of commercial watercress, after the UK. 

Over the winter, UK beds are only partly cropped due to the lower light levels and harder frosts, so that period is spent preparing for the UK season which starts in May, and Spanish grown supply is used instead.

During bad weather in the Mediterranean country, farmers have been able to come through frosts in January and February using techniques and a system honed over 20 years.

This involves water recirculation that mimics the natural springs in which watercress is traditionally grown.

Good supplies of watercress are now readily available for UK packing factories which supply supermarkets.

Watercress is unique amongst salad leaves as it is grown in specially designed beds in flowing water and not on land.

In the UK, where watercress has been commercially grown since Victorian times, the beds were built where water bubbles up from underground springs and aquifers. 

It remains at a constant temperature of 10 degrees Celsius, which means that in times of frost, the water doesn’t freeze, and the watercress plants bend down towards the water to keep warm.

In times of drought, the water source is sustained underground so the watercress plants don’t go thirsty. 

It is the effect of the flowing water created in the Spanish beds through recirculation which provides the same protection.

Tom Amery, managing director of The Watercress Company, said: “We are very lucky that watercress is so resilient; provided the day temperature is above 14 degrees Celsius, it needs neither heating nor protection unlike other salad crops. 

"Demand for watercress is high at the moment because it is able to fill the gap left by other salad leaves whose harvests have been dramatically affected by the weather. 

"We are currently bringing in 32 tonnes of watercress every week but I estimate that 50 tonnes per week are currently being sold in the UK. 

"We rely on our Spanish grown crops to help us maintain all year-round supply of watercress but, at the moment, it is helping to keep the UK in salad - full stop.”

For more information on The Watercress Company visit www.thewatercresscompany.com