Tiptree: Wilkin and Sons farm manager discusses water conservation

Andrey Ivanov, 47, is the general manager of Wilkin and Sons’ four farms, including one in Tiptree.

He discussed conserving and maximising the use of water on all four farms.

Having been farming in Tiptree since the 1750s, Wilkin and Sons is famous for its preserves and spreads using traditional English fruits, and even has a royal charter.

Mr Ivanov said: “All of our fruits require irrigation and a lot of work has been done so far to secure the water for the plants, but we need to do more.

“In the weather patterns, we see more profound symptoms. At the moment, when we have a drought, it’s very dry and when there’s a wet patch, it doesn’t seem to go away.

“At the moment, since the rain started last autumn, it hasn’t stopped raining. The ground is saturated, we’ve got excess water.

“We’ve got the reservoirs in place but we need more reservoirs to store all the rainwater available now and have it ready for when it’s needed during a dry patch in the summer.”

Recent innovations ensure that every strawberry plant on the farm receives a measured amount of water to its roots.

Site - Wilkin and Sons (Image: Google Street View)

This is unlike 20 years ago when large rain guns sprayed water across the open strawberry fields as well as on the adjacent paths, tracks and hedgerows.

Mr Ivanov has been working at Wilkin and Sons since 2002 and was initially a production manager before becoming the general manager when the position became available.

He said: “At Tiptree, we collect water in our winter fill reservoirs and we also pipe surplus water from the factory through to a filtration plant then into the reservoir. 

“This water is used to irrigate the strawberries, raspberries and other fruits during the spring and summer months.

"Without this water we would have no crop.

“We believe that we have sufficient rainfall in this county, we just need to be more effective about capturing the water and retaining it for careful use in the future.”