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Hanover (dpa / lni) - After the spring temperatures of the past few days, the asparagus farmers in Lower Saxony are preparing for the start of the harvest.

"The first asparagus will be available from mid-March to the end of March," said Fred Eickhorst, board spokesman for the Association of Asparagus and Berry Growers in Sandhatten (Oldenburg district).

Currently, in many parts of the country, the asparagus dams are covered with foil to accelerate growth.

"Asparagus needs a cold stimulus," said Hinrich Niemann from Eimke-Wichtenbeck (Uelzen district).

Then drive the precious vegetables particularly well.

The frosty temperatures and the snow cover in February would have given this cold stimulus.

Now the warmth has been added in the past few days.

“So I think that the harvest will start quite early this year” - he, too, expects the harvest to start from the end of March to the beginning of April.

At the Thiermann asparagus farm in Kirchdorf (Diepholz district), the harvest is expected to start in mid-March, said spokeswoman Anke Meyer.

"If we were already 40 degrees under the foil on the warm days, we only have a maximum of 10 degrees without the sun," she said.

At the weekend it should be even colder.

There are already customer inquiries about the first asparagus.

This shows that much emphasis is placed on regionality: "People are no longer in the mood for cabbage and now want asparagus."

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Farmer Klaus Hacke from Langlingen (Celle district) expects the first harvest in the coming week.

He is one of those farmers who, thanks to the waste heat from a biogas plant, have laid heating coils in the ground and can use it to heat the asparagus dams a little so that they can harvest earlier.

"The cold nights two weeks ago threw us back a little."

Everything has been prepared for the arrival of the necessary seasonal workers, says Hacke.

"I hope there are no more surprises."

The workers would have to register their entry and show a negative corona test that was not older than 48 hours.

On the farm they are initially in work quarantine for five days, after which they should be tested again.

"We don't want the virus to be introduced."

At the Bolte asparagus farm in Lichtenhorst (Nienburg district), the first asparagus was even harvested thanks to a heating system.

"We saw it by chance last Friday when we were walking the dog again," said Beatrix Bolte.

The quantities that are now being harvested are still very small.

"But for us it is a positive feeling, the signal that spring is about to begin," she said.

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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210302-99-649507 / 2

Nieman's asparagus farm

Thiermann asparagus farm

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Bolte farm

Asparagus farm hoe