FRUIT growers are enjoying the earliest apple harvest ever recorded in Britain – thanks to the combination of a freezing winter and scorching hot spring.

Last winter’s sub-zero temperatures forced orchards to lie dormant for longer, allowing the fruit trees to “re-charge their batteries”.

The extreme cold, combined with April’s unseasonal heatwave, means apples have bloomed nearly six weeks early.

Apple farmer Colin Broomfield, of the Broomfield Fruit Farm, started picking the crop yesterday, marking the earliest harvest in its 100-year history.

Mr Broomfield, aged 44, whose family started the 100-acre farm at Holt Heath in 1911, said: “This beats the previous record by over a week – we’ve never known anything like it. Our squad of 12 fruit-pickers commenced harvesting the Discovery variety and should finish within 10 to 14 days.

“The size of the crop will be about the same as last year but the quality will be much better.

“Fruit growers always look forward to a cold winter as it allows the buds rest and also kills the bugs.

“If this is followed with plenty of sun during the summer, the apples tend to be much sweeter.

“We grow more than 28 apple varieties here now and still remain as passionate about quality English apples as ever.”

Adrian Barlow, chief executive of English Apples and Pears Association, which represents 400 growers across the country, said: “This harvest is weeks ahead of normal – it is the earliest harvest since records began 35 years ago.

“Things are looking great for English apple growers, with supermarket sales having risen 40 per cent in five years.

“The early harvest this year is a very positive business story – it could raise in excess of £50 million in the export market.”

This year’s hot spring hit near-drought levels in Herefordshire and south-east England, threatening the younger and smaller apples trees. Mr Barlow added: “If the intensely dry patch had gone on for much longer, many of the trees would have been in trouble. Bigger apple trees had substantial enough root systems to weather the drought, but the smaller ones would not have been strong enough.”