Better quality of spears through harvest shortening

Asparagus harvest begins when the temperature rises at the turn of April and May and traditionally it is stopped in Poland till June 24. The investigations aimed at checking the results of prolongation and shortening of harvest duration. The following dates of harvest end were comprised in the trial: June 20 as a control, June 10 and June 30. The effects of the date of harvest end on yielding and green spear quality were evaluated throughout eight years of harvesting. Only in the first year of harvesting the yield was higher when harvest time was prolonged to June 30 compared to harvest shortened to June 10. However, in the third year and from the fifth to eight years of harvesting yields were significantly higher when harvest was stopped on June 10 than on June 30. The differences in the yield expressed by weight were bigger than those expressed by a number of harvested spears. The total number of harvested spears was in the first three years bigger when harvest lasted till June 30 compared with harvest till June 10, almost the same in the next two years and smaller in the last three years. The number of marketable spears was bigger when harvest ended on June 30 compared to June 10 only in the first year. It was similar in the next four years and markedly smaller in the last three years. Prolongation of the harvest time resulted in the decrease of the spear quality. The mean weight of spears was much smaller in all the years. There were small differences caused by harvest duration found in the accumulated yield of eight years harvesting. Thus, harvest shortening caused mainly better quality of spears expressed, among others, by their bigger mean weight. Original title, authors and source:Changes in Asparagus Yielding Caused by Harvest DurationKnaflewski, M.; Zurawicz, A.; Buchowski, S.; Krzesinski, W.; Zaworska, A.Poznan University of Life Sciences, Department of Vegetable Crops, Dabrowskiego 159, 60-594, Poznan, PolandInternational Horticulture Congress, Lisboa 2010, ISHS The picture shows asparagus in a street shop in Germany. ?