Posting Guidelines,

suggested by the Our Field team from a similar project, the Field of Wheat - see it here FOW

• Try and read through some or all of the other thoughts, questions and response’s before you write your own.
• When writing your thoughts, questions and reflections it’s fine to quote other people or their writings
• If you want to post a web link or picture, go right ahead but read the text markdown instructions - there are some special grammar rules to do this. See it here markdown
• There are no limits to the amount you write but we recommend a maximum of 2500 characters (around 400 words) so that the discussion doesn’t turn into essays!
• Try to take time to reflect on what you are writing before you submit it.
• Please do not comment on or rebut anyone personally.
• There are no questions too basic.
• This is a space to share your thoughts, ideas and questions whatever your levels of knowledge and experience drawing on your own feelings and contemplative insight as well as rational thought.

It was lovely to meet all of you who came up here on Sunday and I look forward to getting to know the rest of you over the course of the season, either in person or via loomio.

We talked a bit on Sunday about what to plant on your behalf. I'll try to put some flesh on those suggestions. The three crops on offer are:

1) Spring Wheat, a variety called Mulika (which we happen to have in the shed), which when grown conventionally should yield 2 to 3 tonnes grain/acre (5 to 7.5t /hectare). On the farm last year we spent about £170/ha on fertilisers and sprays and it just about made 5t/ha yield as the spring was dry and cold (and a host of other farmr excuses that I won't bore you with in case you worry you've invested in a dud). It tends to produce high protein (14%) milling grain and consequently is sought after by the millers and sells at a good premium to 'feed' wheat. We're hoping for £150/t for last years crop.

2) Spelt. You probably know more about this than I do; we planted our first field of spelt last autumn and we're very pleased with how it looks. Most spelt is grown organically in the UK, but as more people demand it, one or two mills are now buying non-organic spelt, so we'll be able to sell it. I'll talk about organic a bit later. I really have no idea how spring sown spelt will yield or behave, but it will certainly be interesting. The costs should be lower than Mulika, the yield certainly will be,but the price should be much higher.

3) Spring Oats. Oats are pleasingly robust compared to wheat and more competitive against weeds and diseases (on the whole). They are thus cheaper to grow, but should yield much as spring wheat. If we hit the human consumption standard, which is to an extent weather dependant, they will make porridge for someone and money for us. But a lot of farmers seem to be growing them now, so the market could crash...my oat dealer says this is unlikely. We're moving last years oats now at £134/t.

The next decision is whether you want to plant a companion crop in with your cereal. This is uncharted territory for us, though we have grown peaola before (oil seed rape and peas) with mixed results and we've grown various unintended companions with cereals (weeds). This is an enormous and very exciting subject which I can't begin to summarise here. Really keen people can look up my friend Andy Howard's recent Nuffield Scholarship Report, which goes into it in some depth (96 pages iirr). I think it is the future of farming. Or one of the things anyway...

The last decision that needs to be made now is: how 'organic' do you want to be? As Richard the agronomist pointed out on Sunday, if we were properly organic here, we would have built up the fertility in preparation to the growing of wheat or spelt, ie we've have had a legume or herbal ley in the ground the year before. The field we have chosen had a crop of wheat in last year and now has a cover crop of oats and blackgrass, so there won't be a huge amount of natural fertility available to grow a crop without some additional omph. As we aren't bound by organic rules, we can put a bit of nitrogen fertiliser on and this might well mean we have to add fungicide and straw shortener (especially if we go for spelt, which gets to 6 foot high without artificial fertiliser). Again this is a massive subject, which I'm not going to elaborate on here, but trust to the wisdom of the crowd.

In short we can grow the crop without inputs, but we won't get much back and what little we get won't be sellable as organic as we are not registered. It will be cheap and interesting for all that. The reason we need to know now is: if you think we should use at least some inputs, we'll probably add some fertiliser at seeding time to get the plants off to a flying start.

Abi Aspen has provided a reading list for those who want to delve further into all these options.

Hi team!

I'm Abi Aspen, one of the resident scientists who loves to research the bejabbers out of everything :)

Please find below the reading list we've pulled together. I've tried to make it balanced in terms of papers, articles, reputable, maybe not so reputable, organic favoured, conventional favoured. But please be aware we always carry a bit of bias, and encourage you to have a dig around to see what you can find too :)

If anyone can't access any of the documents please just let me know as I believe I have access to some others do not.

Happy reading! And if anyone wants a bit more in depth, or a point in the right direction I'm more than happy to help. Just drop me a line :)

Grainy love

Abi Aspen

Purely on the basis of deliciousness, my vote would be for oats. But that's just to get the discussion going.

When you talk about fertilisers John, is there a choice between industrial NPKs and animal muck? Apart from understanding the chemistry, I'm completely ignorant about this kind of thing.

In answer to your question about 'artificial' fertilisers and farmyard manure, we haven't got a big supply of well-rotted FYM/compost to apply and even if we had, we'd have a job to apply as much N with FYM as we might need to get a decent conventional yield.

Thanks John, great answer.

Thinking about the grains - I will want to vote for something I can make bread with so for me it's between Mulika and Spelt. Mulika looks a good grain from what I can see but we need to take advantage of the added value from @ourfield and the shared risk - John would probably grow this anyway. Spelt looks good from the growing interest in it and we could demonstrate growing non-organic Spelt. The shared risk and collaborative decision making down the line may be the part that is important and we have additional innovative marketing from anything that comes out of this project whatever the outcome - so still not there with my voting choice but I am sure whatever we choose will be fine.

My apologises for not being at the first meeting but have every intention to be at the next. Look forward to meeting you all I must admit I am leaning towards the Spelt. John's point about not knowing about the yield makes me want to find out. I think it would be interesting.

Tony Allan
I am finding using multiple sites - Ourfield and Loomio - very frustrating indeed. One can go round and round and then not be able to find one's way back to the page where there is some information needed in order to make a contribution on the decision. I also have not fathomed how

I am not clear whether we are using the field with black grass - and as I say I cannot find my way back to the place where JohnC set out the position. I judge it would be interesting to use the field with black grass as part of the 'experiment'..

My preferences
Approach - experimental and learning to be prioritised over profit(?)
Crop - Spelt, possibly in combination with a legume.

Many thanks John and the team at the farm.

You have said you find switching between multiple site time-consuming. I sympathise.

The intention is to use Loomio Group threads, especially this one to the exclusion of any other sites. I am not checking the Our Field web site, and I don't think John Cherry is either.

So, if you want to exchange information with the others, this is the definitely place.

Remember, these are public threads anyone can look at, but only the paid-up members can contribute and vote.

Many thanks for your sympathetic reply. One does not like revealing one's on-line limitations. I appreciate your leadership on how to communicate if it makes communication easy.

QUESTION FOR JOHN CHERRY
I would also like to ask John Cherry whether there are significant additional transaction costs in 1. SEPARATING the outputs from a combined crop strategy, 2. MARKETING spelt and legumes compared with marketing spring wheat.

There will be a modest extra cost in separating legume seeds from a cereal crop, but I'd hope the extra value of the bonus crop would more than pay for the hassle. We have the technology to do this on farm, we pass a lot of our crops over the sieves to clean them up before selling anyway. I don't know how easily the spelt or legumes will be to market, but I don't think it will be too difficult as long as the quality is there. I suspect by harvest time there will be a disorderly queue of buyers jostling with each other to get their hands on what we've grown!

I would like us to grow spelt and lentils but am also interested in mulika. How expensive are the mulika seeds?
You can buy spelt flour easily and it sells at over twice the price of regular bread flour. I couldn't find any 'mulika' wheat for sale for bakers, the name isn't used as it is for spelt. So it might be a market opportunity: 'Mulika, the new spelt!'
I wonder what lentils can be grown on 'our field'? It would be great to offer British lentils.

Sorry, I didn't explain what Mulika is very clearly. It is an ordinary spring sown wheat variety, one of a dozen or so commercial varieties that farmers will sow this spring. It happens to produce good quality grain that the commercial millers like, so is easily sold.

Hi, wonderful to meet so many of you last week. I look forward to meeting the rest of you in due course & via Loomio. 


Before getting on to the crops I wanted to share my thoughts on the trade off between making a profit and experimentation which was highlighted last Sunday. 

For me, a key reason for joining the collective was to learn more about the reality of farming and the challenges faced. Likewise I feel that OurField's model holds a deal of potential to make farming a more appealing career through reduced financial risk for the farmer. I would like the results of Our Field Weston to encourage others to do the same. Therefore I think it's quite important that we don't all end up at a huge loss. I feel that being able to say that we broke even, along with the other benefits of the co-op would be enough to encourage others to see OurField as as viable model with appeal for investors and farmers.

Like many of you, I'm keen to experiment with the crops and see what we can achieve without masses of chemical inputs, but am cautious of us taking on too much and think we should seek a middle ground. As Abby stressed last week, the process of FOW was much more complex than she anticipated. My heart is with companion cropping with a legume but I feel this might be best as an endeavour for a hypothetical year 2. - Should John or another farmer take us back. 

This leads to my vote for oats or spelt. I’ve seen spelt cropping up everywhere over the last few years (forgive the pun) and if there is a miller that we could use, I’m hopeful that we could find a buyer. As Christine says we should have the added value of ‘OurField’ on our side. I also heard rumours that there were some bakeries interested? In short, I would like others to see OurField as a successful, replicable model and for our crop to help transition the field so that the next crop would need less chemical inputs.

Thanks to John and family for having us!

Hello! We just read Tessa's post and we just wanted to say that we are very much in agreement with the points she raises around ensuring a degree of success to make the project an attractive model for future uptake.

With regards to what to grow, our initial thinking is a preference for spelt, potentially with a companion crop as increasing diversity appeals to us. It would be great to be able to take this project through to completion, ergo marketing and selling the final outputs ourselves vs. selling to a wholesaler. Thoughts?

Hello,
After a lot of consideration I would like to suggest growing spelt with a companion crop of lentils..

Hi All!

This is a fascinating discussion, and I concur with those that advocate for a middle-ground here: I do think that financial viability should be an important criterion in our decision-making. Moreover, I agree that our collective work through #OurField can serve as a valuable source of information for 'future farmers,' and that this is an important consideration in our decision-making -- though with a small addition that future farmers will only be successful if they can live profitably through their farm work. My vote as it stands is for spelt, though I'm open to considering a small companion crop along with this.

Would like to suggest we could consider splitting the field into half with one half with a companion crop and one half without if not too much labour. I also think a good injection of fertiliser at seeding time seems very sensible, why make it harder. Also just to check that I remember from the discussions that sieving companion crops did not easily make them okay for human consumption - the grain would be but the companion crop would be for animal feed due to sieving mechanisms. Great to have this discussion here - I agree with Tessa on the wider debate but feel excited to give a companion crop a chance - hence the 50% option. We cannot though fail or others will never follow.

I feel very undecided and that there are good reasons to choose all three. Really enjoyed reading all the thoughts from the group so far. Re-iterating the thoughts of others in the group - I think it's important that profit plays some bearing in our decision as John has the largest stake in the field - so he has the most to lose financially...I feel we must acknowledge that farming is a livelihood. On the other hand what's exciting is we are sharing that financial risk so we can be a bit experimental. So I feel we are in a strong position for our decisions to be driven by effect on planet and profit. I am very excited about John's suggestion of companion crops and although it is somewhat unchartered territory in the UK - My understanding from John is that he thinks there is little to lose financially . Quick questions @johncherry - Is that correct? And if yes are there any benefits to the soil/earth of a companion crop? If we use a companion crop - as there are two crops, would you ordinarily apply more chemical inputs?

In answer to Tamsyn and Abby's questions about companion crops...we don't really know. In theory, companions are better for the soil and planet. Monocultures very rarely occur in the wild, so we are asking to problems if we try and grow them in our fields. All the evidence suggests that pest, weed and disease problems are reduced where suitable companions are grown, which should mean less need for chemical intervention. However, there will be a certain amount of guesswork when it comes to working out what are suitable companions.

The easiest one (for all these crops) would probably be to sow an under-storey of white clover, which would suppress weeds and add a little bit of N, but it wouldn't be harvestable. It's a cost for an uncertain benefit. Otherwise, for wheat or spelt, some faba beans sound like the best option; they would add diversity and a bit of N and each crop would get some benefit of disease and weed suppression. But these benefits only really apply if we go for no extra N after the seed-bed application, ie a quasi-organic approach. Similarly the lentils work best if they are the main crop and oats are sown at 15 to 25% of their normal seed-rate and are effectively a trellis for the lentils to grow up. Lentils are pulses so have to be grown without N fertiliser, hardly anyone grows them in the UK, whether that's inertia or for good agronomic reasons, I don't know. Oats and lentil seed are a similar size and weight so are tricky to separate. The separation doesn't hurt either seed necessarily, but might reduce the value if we can't make a clean job of it.

I'm deliberately making a hash of selling companions to you as there is risk attached, either low/no yield or contaminated crops meaning we don't get paid. As people have pointed out, we're all invested in this and it would be a shame to kill the idea off with a spectacular failure in year one. What I think we'll do anyway (regardless of whatever you vote for in this field) is to plant two or three demonstration companion crops plots in the Groundswell field for delegates to look at during that show at the end of June (Andy Howard is speaking at the show, so he can lead people through the plots). This will satisfy my curiosity and also be something for #ourfield people to look at everytime they come up.

Interesting idea @christinelewis - @johncherry would a 50/50 field split be a feasible option? For example, half the field spelt and half spelt with companion crop? A couple of people have suggested spelt and lentils - I checked my notes and have written that lentils would be a potential companion crop for oats (and this combination has been done successfully in London), but it is hard to separate the crops post harvest; however, I thought that spelt and lentils were not an option as the spelt outgrows and overshadows the lentils so they don't get the light and beans would be the more suitable companion crop for spelt (and wheat)? If we choose the right varieties of spelt and beans they will ripen at the same time and there is less disease potential, potentially resulting in a higher yield than mono cropping. @johncherry what are the pros and cons to the potential different companion crop combinations?

It seems worth remembering that every action on the field has costs, so splitting it immediately doubles the possible number of actions. Further the field itself is just a small part of a larger farm, so presumably the point of making decisions is to make them, not just to say 'lets do a little of everything'? We have to be careful not to turn our horse into a camel.

@grahamehunter I am in agreement, we shouldn't do a little of everything and I suspect that wouldn't align with a desire to succeed with a model that breaks even. I love to explore all options and non-options to understand the reasons for and against before reaching a final decision; thank you for your reply :-)

Hi Everyone
Have really enjoyed reading the discussion so far. I think Tessa said something close to what I had been thinking too. I'm interested in seeing how farming happens on the farm as it would normally run, and to some extent taking a similar set of decisions as John and Richard would without us there. I think that being no-till is already an exciting innovation so ensuring our decisions are broadly in line with what supports the no-till principle seems important to me.

I also agree that I don't want to expose the group to a large amount of risk for the sake of quite extreme experimentation. There is definitely a value in showing that this is replicable - both for farmers and non-farmers.

So I think my preference would probably be for either wheat or spelt without a companion crop (and using inputs as necessary). I'm ready to be persuaded about the companion crops though, but slightly wary of trying something for the first time without consulting closely with someone who has done it before!

I would be really interested in looking at new ways of marketing the crop and I think I remember hearing at the farm that it's worth starting to think about that as soon as we can. I quite like the idea of an "OurField" branded product at the end of it!

Hi,

Great discussion, really good to read.
There is so much to know and I do support John when it comes to the complexity of companion cropping. Andy Howard has written an excellent Nuffield report on the subject - The potential for companion cropping and intercropping on UK arable farms. And their are a great many places for further information on Green Manures, which are crops that can add benefit to the soil, this one is quite thorough and is recommended in Andy's report - http://www.organicresearchcentre.com/manage/authincludes/article_uploads/iota/technical-leaflets/green-manures-species-selection.pdf.
Field beans make a sensible choice from what I'm looking at in this discussion so far as they are relatively straightforward to grow alongside cereal crops and have a marketable value.
Oats or the mulika wheat for the maiincrop seems sensible. I'm not a farmer and most of the farmers I work with are organic and not min-till, though some are reduced tillage. So, I don't know how a green manure would work for John in terms of then not ploughing back in.

@nikitagulhane Hi, Niki You were the first to propose a combination of spelt and lentils together - after reading the several other posts since, and some relevant links, is there anything you would like to add to or vary your suggestion?

Hi All, apologies for coming late to #OurField. I'm a farmer's son and a crop researcher with the company ADAS, and I also took part in Field of Wheat (though afraid I never made it to any of the meetings). We run the Yield Enhancement Network (www.yen.adas.co.uk) which involves a yield competition and works with most of the major agri-businesses ... so i come from the conventional intensive agriculture end of spectrum, and by & large I'm prepared to defend intensive agriculture from a sustainability perspective (mainly because it enables land sparing see- http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n5/abs/nclimate2910.html). However, I recognise that continued improvements in productivity and sustainability require consideration of the full food, farm and soil ecosystem, and that all farmers researchers & advisors have much to learn from each other whatever system they come from.

Regarding the decision here, spring wheat or oats grown more or less conventionally would both be a pretty safe bet. However, they don't necessarily play to the advantages brought by the collective in #ourfield. I know very little about spelt, but if we are sure we have a market, the price is high enough and we are confident we'll be able to harvest at least some yield (2-3 t/ha?) with a saleable quality then i feel it may be worth the risk. I wouldn't advocate companion cropping at this stage, especially not with lentils that no-one in the UK knows how to grow alone, let alone with another unfamiliar crop. But would be great to see a strip sown so we know for the future.

@johncherry John, i may have missed it, but please can you say what your soil type is? Do you have any recent soil analysis, ideally with soil organic matter %? Do you ever get soil mineral nitrogen tests done in spring? Out of interest what typical yield of winter wheat would you expect? Can you give the grid reference or latitude/longitude for the field? Sorry for all the questions. We can enter this field into the YEN and get a 'soil health check' analysis from NRM, and i should also be able to get satellite imagery through the season.

This is to introduce the first vote

_ Once upon a time a Farmer and his Agronomist were discussing what to plant, and how it should be treated, and the advantages of companion crops on their farm with their equipment in a particular field._

_ They soon realised that in their circumstances if there were to be companion cropping there was a __ big risk__ of the quality of both crops being diminished, the separate yields lower, and with a high likelihood that the end product would end up as animal feed._

This is where we are at Weston now. For this reason _the first decision to be made is whether the Group _

• wants to be more adventurous, more experimental, whilst knowing the resultant crops would be of poorer quality, harder to separate and most likely end up at least in large part as animal fodder.
  or

• wants to aim for the highest quality crop which would definitely end up as food for humans, including the possibility of making bread flour.

So here is the first binary choice:

Does the group wish to be experimental?

(= adventurous with companion cropping, but with the likely harvest being poorer, and most probably used for animal food,)

or

Does the Group instead want to aim for a high quality single crop (mono-culture)?

(= safer, and with the intention this will definitely be for people to eat?)

__ It is only yes or no – so read these statements carefully __

• Vote __ YES __ to support an adventure into a multi-crop, perhaps with poorer outcomes.
• Vote __ No__ to avoid companion cropping and go for best quality single crop, intended for the human food chain – including baking quality.

This vote may be in the wrong order for me as I am swaying between just spelt or wheat with a companion crop of beans (not lentils as it’s too unknown and doesn’t seem a good match for either grain).

I think we should take some risk – and try one newish thing for John – but not try all new ideas at once and make things much more complicated than they already are / need to be. I too would like the project to look successful to others – not wholly financially but also that we have not been afraid to move slightly further away from standard farming practices in the UK. I think either of my options will do this and would be happy with both.

Some of you may be interested in a little experiment I have carried out. Post visiting the farm I hunted out some spelt flour to make some spelt bread for the first time. I found Dove’s wholewheat organic easily at Sainsbury’s (£2/1kg) but had to go to Waitrose for white, where they had Waitrose own non organic (£2/1kg) and Sharpham Park organic (£3.50/1kg).

I made a 100% white, 100% wholemeal and 50/50 (this is the taste I prefer when I use wheat). I found the white to be a bit dull tasting, the 50/50 to be ok and the wholemeal to be really tasty (more than wheat and with a softer structure to the loaf). The 100% wholemeal spelt loaf therefore appeals to me from a nutritional point of view as I can move away from my previous 50/50 wheat. @nikireynolds @tamsynforsyth as nutritionists you may have some useful info to share on the differences?

I have a few questions that would help me (and maybe others) decide between my own two options.

@johncherry You have said that lentils would need to be the main crop with oats at only 15 to 25%. Do you know a rough ratio needed for wheat:beans?

@romymiller I have seen that Gails makes some spelt loaves sold through Waitrose and maybe sometimes directly Have you had much feedback from your customers about the bread? Was it popular or hard to sell?

My vote:

In order to keep things moving and make a vote on this proposal though I have said no – this is based on John’s suggestion he will try companion cropping elsewhere on the farm anyway, from looking at overall views spelt seems to be the most popular option at the moment (probably myself included) and my hope that we end up with human quality food (ideally that can be used for bread).

@wendyalcock as far as my knowledge on spelt goes, the wholegrain flour contains a higher proportion of protein than the white (note that spelt flour generally has a higher protein content than other types of grain flour such as wheat), and it also contains a greater portion of dietary fibre (crucial for gastrointestinal health and digestion). The white spelt flour has some nutritional advantages over the wholegrain flour, primarily being lower in calories and having a lower gluten level. As with protein, spelt flour generally is lower in gluten levels than many other types of grain. Hope that helps :-) If anyone else knows any more / different please shout!

@wendyalcock I am interested in the spelt bread discussion - but as my remarks are really nothing to do with the main subject, I am going to set up a new "random" topic, and comment there..

As I mention in my introduction I'm really interested in people growing their own food together & would be very happy if we grew something that all (or most) of us ended up using as food. To me this would be a very successful outcome. I understand this will take extra work (figuring out processing and/or marketing) rather than just selling onto the commodity markets - but I'm up for putting efforts into that.

With this in mind I think oats would be a great choice as most people dont bake their own bread. I eat lots of porridge, oat cakes (I've never made them, but have a friend who does and they are quick, easy and crumbly delicious) and even sometimes use oat groats as a respectable alternative to brown rice. So I've been doing a fair bit of research on growing oats.

At the farm @harryboglione wondered about the possibility of using naked oats, which are interesting as they are much easier to process for food. They also dont need to be heat treated, so, if you were so inclined could sometimes be sprouted (for higher nutritional value & greater variety of uses).

I'm also very into soily stuff and intrigued by the possibility & effects of cover crops, although it would be sad if what we grew could not be used for human food. I got excited about the idea of lentils & oats (thinking of eating a dahl curry with oat groats - a meal from the field), but If I'm understanding correctly separating will be difficult and could potentially lead to the crop having to go for animal feed.

I wonder about the possibility of using a field pea instead as a companion for oats, as the larger size would surely make separation easier?

I'm much less interested in making a financial profit (or breaking even) - although of course it would be good if we could.

I wonder, if you really tried, if you could eat £150 or even £200 (retail price) worth of oats in a year??? ;-)