A lack of commercial interest from large breeders is limiting organic farmers’ access to suitable UK wheat varieties, but a new group is aiming to change that.
CLIVE BAILYE drilling clover as a living mulch foundation for a cash crop GROWING A living mulch under cash crops could eliminate the need for artificial fertilisers, cut costs and boost farm productivity. At least that is the principle behind ongoing trials of the technique, which utilises the ability of clover to fix nitrogen out of the atmosphere, and enrich the soils in which it grows without the need for applications of manufactured nitrates. Crucially, the use of clover could also greatly reduce the need to plough the soil, and this limit the release of soil carbon. A team of six farmers is now trialling crop production with a permanent cover of clover underneath – and the key question is whether this plant can cohabit under a crop without significantly affecting its yield. If successful, the technique could become the ‘holy grail’ for environmentally friendly arable farming.
‘I’m seen as the fool’: the farmers putting trees back into the UK’s fields Patrick Barkham Photographs by Jim Wileman
Andy Gray stands beside an enormous hill of bare red earth and smiles with a hint of mischief. This is his best field, its soils known as Crediton red land. The region was once known for producing swedes prized by Covent Garden market. Now, every six metres, planted in rows 14 metres apart, stands a tree guard shielding a young oak, aspen or alder.
“You can grow anything on it and I’m planting trees,” says Gray, a 16th-generation Devon farmer. “I’m seen as the fool on the hill. One neighbour said ‘you might as well concrete it over and build houses’. They could be right. Who knows?”