As some one who believes in not using chemical imputes on crops i would personally oped out of using nitrogen on the field for the following reasons. 1st i think it totally defeats the point of under-sowing the spelt with clover and clover dose not do well if you apply nitrogen to it. 2nd if your applying nitrogen to get the spelt to grow away from the weeds you are also applying it to the weeds which will also make them grow faster. 3rd as we are growing spelt which tends to be a tall crop we are potentially going to put the crop at a grater risk of lodging (falling over making it very hard to pick up with the combine) as a result reducing the yield. 4th altho it is a relatively low dose of nitrogen it will increase the crops venerability to disease down the line. to conclude i co-invested in the project in the name of collaboration and experimentation not to make a profit on my investment and if i don't try to do things differently i won't learn from the experience.

I am appreciating the discussion very much indeed. It would be very useful if John and/or Richard could have time to comment. Thank you Daniel for the comment on the NIR (near infra-red) sensor.

I would be curious to see what the impact of applying fertiliser to only part of the crop would be. How much competition are the weeds to the spelt - will they deny the spelt space/nutrient/light too quickly to allow it to get a foothold? Purely from a laypersons perspective I have no real concept of what happens to the potential yield if artificial inputs aren't used within a no till framework but I do think Harry B raises some good points.
I would be more interested to see our field follow a low input route with an eye to seeing at what impact this has on the field's soil profile and fertility over the next few seasons.
Since use of fertiliser on only part of the field is not an option I shall vote for no use of fertiliser.

I originally agreed to apply fertiliser, but after much research and deliberation I have changed my mind and voted to disagree with applying fertiliser.. I believe it would be good to see how the crop fares without any artificial applications and keep to organic principles.

Hi there,

My apologies for not getting into vote. I have been having trouble logging in and once logged in lose connection

I know its too late however my vote would have been no as I feel as the project is an experiment it would be interesting to see if we could do without.

@averilglencross the deadline was extended until 11pm tonight - so please do cast your vote today

I had trouble logging in and I found the answer was to google Loomio and then log in afresh that way rather than via the email link.. Hope this will help anyone who has logging in problems

Lots of great reasoning and comments from everyone - thank you. I feel a bit nervous about our spring spelt. I recognise that I'm relatively comfortable with the risk that I might lose £150, but if I was the sole farmer and had invested £10,000 in the field I would not be comfortable with risking losing it all. So the shared risk is heavily affecting my decision...and I also want to acknowledge that @johncherry you are much more invested in this field than any of us with about a £3000 share. So you have more to lose than any of us...but also potentially more to gain as many of us have voted for long-term health benefits to the soil over short-term gains for our crop.
My ideal scenario would be to apply Nitrogen as you have suggested to half the field and then no Nitrogen to the other half and see what happens - this would be a great learning experience. If we chose just one or the other we will never know what affect the Nitrogen application really has. If you have time to comment on everything so far @johncherry and how you are feeling about a nitrogen application or not sometime today before the vote closes that would be amazing :)... I'm still a bit on the fence!

I would like to propose doing half and half also..

Happy to do half and half. In Italy at minute and v slow typing on phone so won't elaborate.

I like the idea of going half and hLf.. Would be fascinating to see the outcome..

Thank you Niki.

The one problem I have is I have forgotten my password and when I logo in the other way I have it saved.

My mistake should have written it down.

Hi Averil,

Maybe when you try to log in and put any password in there should be a pop up message to say 'Forgotton Password' click onto that then you can re-set it..
Good luck

Niki xx

Hi Niki,

I went in a different way and have voted.

Thank you

Averil

Hi Averil,

That's excellent..

Niki xx

Admin matters - log in questions etc.
@nikitagulhane @averilglencross

don't forget the other discussion threads for admin and technical questions; and off topic discussions.

Everyone should note that there are separate threads for matters which do not relate to the crop conversation. It is nice to keep them distinct, otherwise the thread can become somewhat unwieldy and everyone has to scroll through matters about voting or logging in, or baking etc 🐰 to try to get to the points about the crop.

What a fascinating debate. While I prefer to add some nutrition to the field I understand and welcome the debate for the options not to. But we cannot have the option to go with half with and half without under this specific vote. We can have an additional vote but I worry about delay. Nutrition is one thing but then pesticide will be another - what other votes will we need to come to a consensus with and what is the most important. Does nutrition mean the crop is better placed to withstand weeds and make it less likely to need pesticide. I prefer nutrition than pesticide. Hey ho - happy to go with the end result as I am learning a lot but feel I know too little.

My main concern with a 50/50 split, if at all feasible, is that it may give us a skewed comparison over a relatively short time frame of the differences between using a nitrogen fertiliser vs not using the fertiliser. In other words, I'm afraid it would give us a misleading result that favours the nitrogen fertiliser option as it's more productive in the short run, while overlooking the potential long term (and thus currently immeasurable) benefits of using no fertiliser.

For this reason, among the other reasons already presented, im leaning towards (with 20 mins left on the clock!) the no fertiliser option. We seem to have a clearer understanding of what will happen if we use fertiliser, so I'm inclined to use this project more as an experiment..even if that entails more risk

Well, we decided to do nothing and the spelt is looking very good on it. There is a smattering of weeds, but at the moment the spelt is outgrowing them and without N fertiliser, they (the weeds) will probably lose the race. So it is a case of waiting and seeing what happens next.

Meanwhile Tony Allen brought David Dent along to give the soil a thorough testing in four locations around the field, including a bulk density test, the result of which we await with interest. More on this elsewhere.

To complement the YEN soil tests that @danielkindred organised, Richard the agronomist took some tissue samples (ie spelt leaves) and sent them to NRM. The results are just in and posted below.

Very exciting to hear that the spelt is making progress without N fertiliser! Still early days but I like what I'm hearing. :)

Re: the tissue samples sent to the NRM, do you have any insight into what exactly these results mean? I.e. how do these results fare with previous tests, 'average' scores etc. I see most nutrients are in the 'normal' range, with q few being excessive (Molybdenum) and others (Nitrogen and Sulphur) being deficient. How do you interpret that, and how do you correct these extremes?

To be honest , I don't know much about tissue tests. They are a snapshot in time from a randomly selected plant, so could mean anything. We'll do another in a week or two and see if there's a pattern. There should be a correlation with the soil test if they are to mean anything, time tell. A lot of the extremes would be hard to correct on their own. Anything's possible, but is it worth it...
Meanwhile here's a pic from yesterday. Ear emerging from boot. Crop still only a foot high. Needs more rain!

thanks for the photo @johncherry - grown lots since we visited a few weeks ago!! Really appreciate these updates :)

Spelt is growing away nicely. Now about 3 foot tall. Sky lark nest to add colour.

The spelt is ripening rapidly and should be ready to combine later this week, weather permitting. This leads us to our next set of questions for everyone to ponder: what to do next.

There is no real point in trying to sell the crop until it is in the shed and we know how much there is of it and how nice it is (ie how much protein/gluten etc there is, in terms of suitability for milling/baking). That being said, we still need a plan. We estimate the yield will be something like 1tonne/acre, which gives us 20 odd tonnes to play with. We'd like to keep some back for planting next year, the rest is up to you...

We haven't spent that much of your money this year, it has been a very cheap crop to grow. Whether we would have much more out there if we'd fertilised it and sprayed a fungicide, we'll never know. A lot of the crops planted this spring haven't really come to much as we had a prolonged dry spell when we wanted rain and rain when we wanted dry (like now for harvest). That's farmers for you, always complaining. It's perhaps too early to say what the right thing to do was, whatever, it has been very interesting. I'll leave it to the number-crunchers to work out your returns, a lot will depend on how successful we are in marketing the spelt.

The next question is really whether you all want to carry on with the same field and grow different crops through the rotation. The field needs a break next year, so it won't have a grain crop in (unless you fancy risking a crop of buckwheat or quinoa or some-such 'false-grain' next spring...).
You may all want a change of scene and go elsewhere or invest your cash in something else, we just need to know quite soon; we'll likely put a cover crop in the field after harvest anyway which keeps the soil happy and most other options open.

Meanwhile I'd like to thank Tony Allan for arranging for David Dent to come and do a thorough soil density test in four different parts of the field. Alarmingly, David's conclusions were that the soil is compacted and doesn't have enough air in it for optimal growing conditions. I've had a word with the worms and basically told them to work harder. I'd rather they did the de-compacting, much cheaper and longer lasting than pulling metal implements through the profile.

John

I tried (and failed) to post a couple of snaps of crop since the rain. There are a lot of weeds coming through now, as well as the cover/trefoil companion crop. If we don't get to harvest the spelt soon, the greenery will be problematic. I could suggest that we treat the crop with a pre-harvest dose of Roundup (aka glyphosate) to kill off the greenery, but that might be too much of a wind-up.

Thanks so much for sharing @johncherry ! whaf would you do in this scenario without our influence at all? Would you spray with glyphosate? And who or how might you sell it? Fingers crossed for a few consistent days with no rain!!

Very many thanks John for finding time to write a very informative message in you inimitable way that conveys essentials briefly with compelling humour. It is all hugely appreciated. Many thanks also for mentioning the reports on the soil of OurField completed on 10 June by David Dent. We should discuss whether/how to share and comment on the soil survey information.

The yield estimate looks useful.

I agree with Abby that we hear from you on:
1 What you would do without our 'decisions'
and
2 I would like to hear the case for glysophate. I sense the group may not be up to speed on the weed challenges. I know, as you do, that other leading UK farmer exponents of no till feel they have to rely on small and well timed use of glysophate.

Do confirm when you intend to harvest the spelt?

And good luck with the marketing. As you hint handling this task is commercially crucial.

In answer to your question @abbyrose, we would probably grown some spring wheat as we have other fields growing it nearby and we'd have sprayed it and given it 100kg/N/Ha and sold it through our local farmers grain co-op. I can ask them if they've got a spelt buyer.

I don't think spraying glyphosate on the crop now would be a good idea, I suggested it as a tease. It's probably too late now, a lot of the spelt is ripe (with dead leaves) so the chemical would just stay on the ear which we want to harvest and I think that is bad. We will try to harvest on a hot, dry day so the weeds don't block the combine's innards. If the wet weather comes back and the weeds continue to grow, we might have to consider spraying diquat which will scorch the leaves, but not necessarily kill the root, and enable us to harvest a couple of days later. Glyphosate can take up to 3 weeks to work.

You are right @johnanthonyallan that we have to use some herbicides at least with our current no-till system, but we are experimenting every year with techniques to reduce pesticide use. We no longer use insecticides and the blossoming of insect life is palpable, together with the increase in bird numbers (slightly higher up the food chain). Spraying the crop just prior to harvest is one of the first sprays we should be giving up. And I hope we never have to do it (spray, I mean, not giving up...). Glyphosate spraying just before we sow the crop strikes me as the way to go.

Thank you John for the reply providing the additional information on weeds and pests. Let's pray for a few hot days. It would be useful to inform the group about the weed and herbicide issue. Could we ask Amir Kassam to say how the UK is doing compared with the global no-till story?
I think Abby was asking what you would do next rather than what you would have done on the field this year. As a suggestion for what next - what about sowing a leguminous cover crop?

@johncherry thank you so much for the update. My Dad has also been furiously combining at home in between awful rainy spells!

It sounds like a pre-harvest glyphosate spray is out, but will it be possible to combine the spelt this week with all the weeds? Do keep us updated.

I think it is time for us to discuss what options we have for marketing/ selling our spelt crop! Keen to hear ideas from the rest of the collective..

@tamsynforsyth @harrygreenfield1 @darren4 @andreadibiagio @jamestickell @abbyrose @catherinearend @averilglencross @alfredlawrie @alexandrasexton @wendyalcock @harryboglione @lucybradley1 @emersoncsorba @christinelewis @shyamdesai @danielkindred @sebastianpowell @veronicalopesdasil1 @matteodv @edna @ellemcall @edibleutopia @sineadfenton @tamsynforsyth @seangifford @nikitagulhane @stevenjacobs @johnanthonyallan @karlschneider @veronicalopesdasil1 @christinelewis1 @sadhbhmoore @matthewshribman @romymiller @nikireynolds @tristramstuart @matthewshribman @stinewilhelmsen @tessatricks

Spelt today. Most ripe, some still a bit green. Will keep an eye on it. Suspect next week better for harvest, but we will see. Not too many weeds showing yet

Hi all

Focusing for the moment on John’s first question ‘what to do next’ and leaving ‘what to do about next year’ for later, below is a copy of my research after contacting some mills back in April.

As I was scanning for my posts I saw potential ideas (and organisations that had been contacted about our field) from other people, but without reading back through all of this thread I don’t want to copy in random bits and pieces.

Maybe people could post again to say who they have previously contacted and what they said. This would allow us to see if there are gaps – eg, Gails, E5 bakehouse, loads of other bakeries and mills – that we could contact to see if they want to buy our grain/flour/something made from the flour.

@johncherry thanks for your updates and pics. It’s good to know you think we’re best waiting to find out our quantity and quality before selling – I can’t think how we’d be able to sell the spelt without it just ending up mixed in with someone else’s otherwise. One question I had, did you manage to find out which mills are used by your local coop? They could be a good place to contact.

Original post:

I heard back from three of the mills I contacted in March – all were very keen to hear about the project - and they told me the following:

Wicken mill http://www.nationalmillsweekend.co.uk/pages_wind/wicken.htm

This small community mill was restored a few years ago and has gradually increased production to 7-8 tonnes last year. They are not electric so are reliant on the power of the wind.

They currently buy their organic grain from http://www.hammondsendfarm.co.uk/ who seem to supplier the smaller traditional mills (and e5 bakehouse). They order grain in 2-3 tonne batches (a trailer load) for £500 a tonne. They are not certified organic so cannot sell their flour as such.

They would be happy to try some of our non-organic grain, if the crop is a good quality, either by a) buying and milling to sell the flour themselves, or b) milling the flour for us for a fee. They can send us a quote if we were interested in option b.

Brixton mill http://www.brixtonwindmill.org/

They also buy from Hammonds End Farm but on a smaller scale - £11.25 for a 25kg sack. Last year was the first year they milled anything (just 750kg of wheat and barley) as they have recently finished the restoration. They would like to try some of our grain, quality dependent, but it is unlikely to be much.

Wrights mill http://www.wrightsflour.co.uk

The MD of this 150 year old, quite large, family mill in Enfield called me himself and sent the following email a few days later:

“Following on from our conversation Wendy we would be able to turn your grain into flour, packed in 16 kg sacks and delivered in 26 pallet loads for £150 per tonne. As I mentioned it would probably be best to buy the grain from you at the market price and sell the flour back to you at this additional cost of £150 per tonne. Bear in mind too that we would need a minimum of 29 tonnes of grain which we will process in one go.”

On the phone he also offered the choice of 1.5kg or 500g bags (for an additional cost). All bags will be plain but can be labelled with a design of our choosing.

He said we would get around 20 tonnes of flour for our 30 tonnes of grain (I guessed we might have this amount). Processing takes around 48 hours to clean, condition mill and pack. We will then need to take delivery of the flour as they cannot store it for us.

We can call to book in the work with around a week’s notice of the harvest. They usually do wheat but can also process spelt (if we are able to grow it, of course).

…

If we end up growing a millable grain I think we have a couple of choices. To use a mill that can process all of the grain in one go and then try to find a buyer for the flour. Or we find several smaller mills to take a part of the grain each who then mill and sell the flour to their own customers. The later would be a nice goal of the project but may be a logistical nightmare!

Dear Wendy

Very many thanks for all the information on many interesting options. Best

Hi,
Certainly is a good read looking through the things people are posting. Thanks to all contributors.
@johncherry my apologies but I can't recall the size of the field that has our attention?

With regard to marketing the grain we will of course need to know the quality before we can make a sale but I'm interested in quantity too. I'm curious also in how the yield will measure up against what @johncherry would expect if more inputs had been used and how the cost of those inputs stacks up against the differences in yield?

And while we consider what to do with the imminent crop we will, I expect, be talking soon about what happens next. Are we taking our money, or losses, and our memories of OurField Weston and disappearing back into the ether?

Quick update and reply to questions...

Field is 20 acres of spelt (with 8 or 9 acres of unsprayed/unfertilised oats at the bottom). No idea how spelt would have performed with a high input regime, but oats will give a steer as most of the spring oats we've got have had some N and a fungicide spray, so what we get form the bottom of #ourfield will give a comparison if you see what I mean.

We are hoping to combine the spelt this weekend, depending on how we get on with our beans...the spelt is very nearly ready and the weather is good so here's hoping.
John

Greetings from Stockholm. I hope the sunshine is as bright in Hertfordshire as it is here.
Good luck.

Harvest!

Wonderful. We look forward to any report you have time to send. Sadly water conference I am attending in Stockholm is farmer free. I keep pointing it out. Also pointing out that Late August is not a good time to get northern hemisphere farmers to take a break from harvesting.

Amazing!!! Thanks so much @johncherry for sending photos and harvesting our spelt -- it's soooo exciting! Interesting there is so much green under the crop as well - is that the clover coming through or is it other weeds? Look forward to hearing total tonnage harvested and quality of the spelt! Also we need to get discussions going with the collective about what we are going to do with it. Thanks @christinelewis for posting about the mills - i think we are waiting for some proposals from other potential buyers as well. We are also trying to get together an overview of the finances so we can understand what we need to sell the crop for to break even etc.

Not so amazing...We have up after a couple of trailer loads...too much greenery and spelt not 100% for. Will try again
John

Interesting cryptic update from John. I'm translating as 'gave up after a couple of trailer loads' and 'spelt not 100% dry'?
I'm happy to put some effort into hunting down some more mills who may be able to do some processing for us.
I'm also interested in what people feel about continuing. I'm keen to continue with this field and/or somewhere else. I'm particularly interested in the possibility of growing a crop that I'd be able to process myself.

On the topic of continuing I am very much in favour. The relationship with John and the field has been very important and very interesting. It would be good to know what issues we should address and what should be prioritised. Who will lead the discussion?

What news of the harvest - on OurFiled and on the farm?

Hello all co-investors. We apologise for the silence our end! The team are super stretched right now in many other areas of life and so we have had a bit of a slow down with OurField. We are aiming to be back on track with the decision about what to do with our spelt in two weeks time. We are also postponing the harvest festival for now (so it will no longer be the weekend of 7th Oct), but will let people know asap once we have confirmed a new date. Thanks so much for all your contributions so far and we are excited for the next decision!

Thanks for the update Abby :-)

Thanks for the update @abbyrose and @johncherry , will keep an eye out for new dates. I'm also feeling that it's been a struggle to make the field a priority. Immediate pressures of life/ wealth of information/ distance from field. All of the things that probably leave us much less engaged with our food than we should be! I really look forward to the next physical convening. Your efforts with the field and to keep us updated are really appreciated @johncherry. I don't feel we've been much help.

I am of a very similar opinion Tessa, I have struggled a little to be as engaged with the project as I would have liked but am really looking forward to the next update / gathering.

Apologies too from me...we did finish harvesting the field in between showers a couple of weeks ago. I haven't measured up yet to estimate the yield, but it looks like 1 tonne/acre is optimistic, but it looks like a nice sample. I had to run it over the cleaner 3 times to get the rubbish out and that has dehulled a lot of the grain, so we will be able to exract some for instant milling. I suspect that the later cut half of the crop will have lost some of its gluten in the rain and so will not be so suitable for breadmaking and thus less valuable. Time will tell
In other news, we finally finished cutting our spring wheat last night, just before the 10 mm of rain that fell as it got dark. It's been a very boring and drawn out harvest and there's a lot of gloomy farmers round here, most of us had a poor harvest yieldwise, though the Farmers Weekly is talking about a bumper UK harvest, so either they are lying as usual or most of the country had different weather to us. Probably a bit of both

John

Dear John
Very many thanks for the information. The yield is respectable considering the problems of acquiring the seed, the cold start of the season and the less than optimum rainfall. We look forward to more details - in may case especially on the weeds. We value very highly the experience of hearing about and seeing a spelt crop germinate, compete with the weeds and get harvested.

Can you advise what you have in mind regarding the 2017-2018 seasons - on cover-cropping or on a winter sown crop or on a spring sown crop? And beyond. This comment is obviously premature in that we should discuss continuation. I write on the assumption that the project will continue if you can stand the strain. It is hoped that this message might stimulate discussion. If someone wants to draft an agenda to structure the discussion it would be helpful.

Thanks @johnanthonyallan for asking some important questions about continuing! This is great to start discussing now! In terms of a more formal agenda for disucssing it, we are first going to put together a formal outline for the decision of what to do with the grain - we hope to really get that discussion going by the end of the week. Then once that has been decided we will kickstart the discussion more formally on what to do next in the field and the potential for continuation.