At various times, strong interest develops within the industry for early crop maturity. Earliness can allow the manager to harvest the crop in a more timely manner and thus reduce the risk of quality downgrades due to weather damage. It can also mean a saving on water and late season spray costs if the period for which protection is required can be reduced. In this paper we will bring together some pieces of ongoing research which are dealing with aspects of the timing of crop maturity. In this article we use the term earliness to describe the time taken from sowing to crop maturity, defined as 60% of the boils open. Thus, a crop which is sown ten days later than a normal crop but harvested only five days later, has greater earliness because the growth period is reduced.