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A drought is threatening to significantly cut this year's Jersey Royal potato crop, growers have warned.The first yield could be cut by 50% following the worst drought on the Channel island in 34 years, the Jersey Royal Company told The Grocer magazine.
Jersey has not had significant rainfall since 3 April and forecasters are not predicting rain for another two weeks.
Mike Renourd, of the Jersey Royal Company, said major supermarkets were assessing the impact on supply.
He told the magazine: "It's looking like the first half of the crop will have a significant yield reduction."
This year's Jersey Royal potato crop is two weeks late because of the prolonged winter and a recent sharp frost which killed some early plants.
It is traditionally one of the first signs of spring.
"Traditionally, coming up in the next couple of weeks you'd have the big volume coming on line where all the retailers would look to do the big promotions this week, next week and the week after, but clearly that volume is down," said Mr Renourd.
He added that the crop planted later did appear to be growing normally.
Sales of all Jersey potatoes, although not specifically Jersey Royals, were worth £45.7m in the year to April, according to retail analyst Kantar.
This figure was up 20.2% on the previous year and volumes rose 32.5% to 37.9m tonnes.This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.