Bitter broccoli, smaller potato crops amid prolonged dry weather in west Victoria
By Jane McNaughton
ABC Rural
Topic:Agriculture
24m ago24 minutes agoWed 26 Mar 2025 at 4:04am
A broccoli in the ground
Although the broccoli is growing, a lack of water is making the plant too bitter to sell. (ABC Everyday: Matilda Marozzi)
In short:
Farmers in western Victoria are struggling to grow good quality crops, due to ongoing hot, dry weather
One broccoli farmer has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of broccoli which is bitter due to water stress
What's next?
It's not expected this will result in broccoli shortages, as large scale supermarket suppliers have better irrigation infrastructure
A farmer in south-west Victoria has ploughed hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of broccoli made bitter by dry weather back into the paddock.
Ben Pohlner runs an organic fruit and vegetable farm, Volcano Produce, at Illowa just west of Warrnambool.
He said although the broccoli was growing, the lack of soil moisture was ruining the flavour of his brassicas.
"The broccoli has gotten water stress and gone bitter — we've had crop after crop fail on us this year, especially over summer,"
he said.
"We still get the nice broccoli or cauliflower head on them but it's practically inedible, it's too bitter to eat.
"We just plough it back into the ground, we can't afford to ruin our reputation over a few crops."
Man in high vis clothing bends over amidst cabbage patch
Ben Pohlner has ploughed much broccoli back into his paddocks. ( ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)
Bitter broccoli
Mr Pohlner said he had not been able to sell any edible broccoli since September.
"You're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars [lost] — $40,000 to $50,000 per crop." he said.
"We need 100 millilitres of rain at the very least and that's just to get some water down deep enough to get the brassicas established.
"Even though we've taken a big hit financially from the brassica crops, we've got plenty of other crops here — we grow around 70 different varieties of fruit and vegetables.
"Strawberries are actually our main crop, which have done pretty well, as have carrots, beetroot, garlic, capsicums, chillies and eggplant."
Mr Pohlner said there were new broccoli crops of between 10,000 to 20,000 plants coming through every fortnight.
A broccoli flower growing in Tasmania
The broccoli has gotten water stress and gone bitter. (ABC Rural: Tony Briscoe)
"It's a reasonable amount there, we're not a big farm by any means we're just a small chemical-free farm," he said.
"Normally with the brassicas we have plenty of moisture deep down in the soil, but this year we had a really dry winter.
"We've had to irrigate all the way through, which is hard for us because we don't have sufficient [access to water for] a large volumes of plants."
Large-scale suppliers contacted by the ABC with more extensive resources and irrigation infrastructure had not experienced the same issues, but other smaller operations in western Victoria had also experienced bitter broccoli.
Poor potato crops
Meanwhile, a potato grower near Ballarat said millions of dollars' worth of farmgate value had also been due to the extended dry spell.
Some growers have not put a crop in at all this season, while others have rationed water as irrigation dams run low.
Kain Richardson from Newlyn said he had not experienced a dry stretch like this since the millennium drought.
"It's been an exceptionally dry eight months, it's been a massive change in seasons,"
he said.
a close up photo of hands holding potatoes that have just been dug out of the ground
Potato crops have been smaller than usual in Victoria due to dry weather. (ABC Rural: Jane McNaughton)
"There has been a huge dependence in the district on underground water and bores.
"Yields will be down a little bit, I don't know if there will be much impact to the quality, it's hard to say until the harvest kicks off this week.
"I'd estimate that two or three million of farmgate value that's been lost out of the district."
Industry sources said overall potato supplies were strong and processors were not expecting any price rises for hot chips or fresh potatoes.
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Posted24m ago24 minutes agoWed 26 Mar 2025 at 4:04am
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