Temperatures rose to above 20 degrees in some parts of the country yesterday, March 27, mainly in the north-west.
Scotland is experiencing record- breaking temperatures for March – even though spring has just sprung it feels as though summer arrived just on cue for the start of British Summer Time.
The mercury reached a new high of 22.9C in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, on Monday afternoon. The highest temperature ever recorded in March in Ireland was 23.4 at Phoenix Park station on March 19th, 1965, who knows if this week’s fantastic weather will hit those heights. For growers there are headaches associated with abnormally high temperatures.
According to a recent article in FPJ –“Capital investment in better air circulation or conditioning facilities will certainly be required in the longer term and any drop in summer precipitation will incur the additional risk of more dust in the production units, which in turn increases the prevalence of competitive (weed) or disease fungi in the beds.”
Certainly we are also experiencing a run of dry weather – in Ireland it is not anywhere near as bad as England. But one can see the dust from the dry conditions, and there’s no sign of any significant rain to come soon.
They’ll soon be calling for rain dances to be performed in the South of England if the dry spell persists.
PS - One week on, April 3rd and where has the sun gone - winter has returned with a vengeance, and temperatures have dropped by 20 degrees from last week. Fluctations are wild.
