WHEN it comes to the A, B and C of growing rhubarb, the Clayton family can trace its association with this versatile vegetable back six generations.
Ash Clayton is continuing the family tradition at Leopold in Victoria where he has 3.2 hectares of rhubarb under cultivation.
His father Robert cites the family as being one of the first rhubarb growers in Australia with connections to the Clayton family in York in the UK which is a major rhubarb growing area.
He has always understood the family may well have brought a particular type of rhubarb when they came to Australia and as a young boy during World War 2, recalls they had around 70 men employed farming and harvesting rhubarb in Beaumaris.
The family have always been vegetable growers and the Melbourne suburb of Clayton was named after them.
Robert said he rediscovered the Clayton’s strain of rhubarb more than 20 years ago.
“I can remember my father had some business with growers in Leopold when I was very young and I recall visiting and seeing rhubarb growing down there as it was an early rhubarb growing region," he said.
"I was developing a program in conjunction with a local organisation and re-establishing a plant farm at Leopold.
"As I was ploughing I spotted some crowns of rhubarb and by the characteristic of the leaves and colour I recognised it as the Clayton’s rhubarb strain.
"I propagated it as it was a very good training tool for the students as well as from a heritage point of view.
"A lot has been lost over the years so I took great care save it and increase the number of crowns.”
Ash continues to grow the original two varieties along with some others for commercial use and also has three varieties currently on trial.
“We grow our main crop for winter production as we have limited water for summer production," he said.
"There’s a backup dam and we maximise with drip irrigation.
"Fresh production makes up about 40 per cent of our business and while the traditional red variety has both good exterior colour and inside the stalk, the larger commercial stalks which are greener inside tend to be favoured by the commercial market.
"Our crown market also makes up about 40pc of our business and we supply crowns to retail nurseries and also the wholesale trade that on-sale and on-pack for retail.
"Our soil here is sandy loam and that is good for nice clean and disease-free crowns for the market.
"The remaining 20pc of our business is devoted to value-adding. We make a range of jams and preserves together with rhubarb cordial which has really good colour and flavour thanks to the rich coloured stalks of our traditional varieties.
"We do some farmers markets but mostly supply wholesale suppliers around the Geelong region. At the moment we are also looking at going into cider as that is a popular market.”
