Arable crops

Arable crops grown at Sheepdrove Organic Farm include: high quality organic milling wheat for bread flour, organic seed wheat, and organic oats, as well as the cereals and beans used for winter feed alongside hay and silage.

At Sheepdrove we do not spray our fields with pesticides – we rely on healthy ecosystems both above and within the soil. Manufactured fertilisers also harm soil life by releasing toxic levels of chemicals such as ammonia. Besides, artificial fertilisers are bad for the climate and create problems for the crop, such as weak, sappy growth.

Arable is always in rotation with pasture. Read more…

Being organic farmers, there is no quick fix, so we have to farm away from problems. It’s all down to understanding soils, crops and good preparation of the ground. This differs slightly depending on whether they follow grass or a previous arable crop.

After the clover and grass leys, the arable team apply compost or composted manure, to add organic matter, fertility and life to the soil. Compost is like an ecosystem booster, a soil conditioner full of fibrous matter, and tiny living things such as bacteria, soil fungus and earthworms. Scientists have found that soils with more diverse ecosystems hold onto nutrients best. After spreading the muck they plough and press the earth.

‘Working down’ cultivators are used to break up the clods which the ploughing created, levelling the soil. Then they drill the seed of the first crop.

Following a cereal they add an extra stage to combat weeds – they use a stubble cultivator to break the ground and then they wait… this allows weeds to germinate (“chit”). Then they go over the field again with a cultivator to kill the weed seedlings, and wait a second time for the weeds to chit… and then plough and press. Once ploughed, the seedbed is finished with a working down cultivator in the same way to prepare the seed bed.

Hopefully after sowing, we can avoid going into the field again (saving labour and fuel) until the crop is ready for harvest. However we might need to do some weeding with a tine harrow while the crop is young. (Before February for a winter-sown cereal, late April or May for a spring-sown cereal.)

Weeding, if needed, is also done by hand during May and June, for problematic wild plants such as Wild Oats. But we generally don’t worry about wild flora in the crop – because it helps us! Most wildflowers grow below the crop’s canopy and provide food to a range of farmer-friendly wildlife such as ground beetles, spiders, and ladybirds, who are our natural army of pest controllers!

Harvest happens in late summer, between July and September, to suit the crop. Contractors come with Combine Harvesters as the crop ripens and dries. All the harvested grain or beans are then dried and cleaned to remove things that we don’t want there, such as poppy heads, and then it’s ready to be milled or used in animal feed. Here at Sheepdrove we make our own bread flour from the best organic wheat.

Taste for yourself
Share our harvest! You can buy Sheepdrove Organic Farm’s stoneground wholemeal bread flour by mail-order, direct from the farm. Occasionally loaves of bread are on sale at our family butcher shops . Our flour is made with particularly selected types of wheat, and it's wholemeal to keep all the minerals and vitamins of the wheat grain.