Westland has warned that the increased use of poor quality substitute materials in composts to make up for the current peat shortage could seriously damage the reputation of growing media.

The company says there is often a “silent” increase in the use of materials like green waste when there are shortages of peat, which is still widely used in growing media, despite the programme to phase out its use in horticulture. The Growing Media Association reported last month that many manufacturers had harvested only 60-70% of their budgeted peat volumes because of a wet summer.

Westland, which has invested £30 million in recent years on the manufacturer of ingredients like West+ to reduce its dependence on peat, says supply issues are an industry reality for the coming season, but won’t affect Westland product availability in 2018, although there will be a cost impact. “More importantly, no effect on quality owing to the multi-material and sustainable approach we have taken for many years,” the company says.



Above: A mountain of raw material for Westland's timber-based West+ 

Westland’s marketing director Keith Nicholson said Westland had a proud record of not using green waste in any of its products, factories or facilities owing to highly inconsistent results for gardeners.

A company statement said green waste was a material that needed to be treated extremely carefully as it could be potentially damaging to the reputation of growing media with both gardeners and professionals alike.  “It is important that our growing media industry does not take these ‘silent’ short cuts and keeps product consistency at the heart of our valuable market sector.”