FRUIT growers are preparing to pick early this year after a spring scorcher.

Crops of apples, pears, plums and cherries could be in the shops much sooner than usual after the record hot weather in April and a dry May so far.

There has been so little rain this spring that Severn Trent Water has already started warning people not to waste water with reservoir levels down 10 per cent on last year.

Your Worcester News weather expert Paul Damari said the dry weather was set to continue all this week – but for the longer term outlook, he said that “Mother Nature always balances her books”.

Worcestershire grower Colin Broomfield, of Broomfields Farm, says the weather has advanced the picking season by up to three weeks.

He said: “We would usually be picking apples in August but if the weather stays a little warmer, then we could be picking in the third week of July – and that has never happened. It’s down to the warm spell we had in April.

“For the first time, we had apples, pears, plums and cherry trees all in blossom at the same time when normally, they would have about one or two weeks between each.

“It means the bees in our beehives were working overtime – they were filling their boots.”

He said as things stand, cherry picking could start as early as late June, plums in the first week of July and pears in mid-August.

Mr Broomfield oversees growing on the family’s 75-acre farm and orchard at Holt Heath, near Worcester, and Cutnall Green, near Droitwich.

He said the dry spell was not too much of a worry “if you’ve got irrigation” but also said that “a drop more rain wouldn’t hurt”.

One thing he says growers could now do without is the blustery wind which damages the leaves on the fruit trees and causes the fruit to bruise on the branch by knocking together.

Mr Damari said the county had seen lower than average rainfall since the start of the year, with the dry spell continuing.

“It’s been warm and dry and that’s allowed the bees to get out and pollinate, so things have started growing very quickly this year,” he said. “There’s no sign of substantial rainfall yet and that’s not good news for farmers and growers.”