The Summer 2008 No.5 ORGANIC GROWER The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance IN THIS ISSUE Read all about it! News ...... 2 Most growers just want to get on with their growing. It’s an engaging activity - to the extent that the non-grower might think that organic Aminopyralid - a new threat to growers take an overly obsessive interest in their craft. vegetable growers everywhere...... 10 It doesn’t leave much time for anything else. As a craft it is hedged OGA visit to Charles about and pitfalled with all the obstacles that come with working in the natural world, so that when things are going well we can never be Dowdings’...... 12 sure that tomorrow will not bring some flood or drought or damaging visitation. If we were to grow laurels it’s very unlikely that we would ...... OGA visit to Tozer Seeds 13 be able to rest on them. We apply our intuition and intelligence and the skills that we learn to this unpredictable world, believing or hoping ...... G’s and green manures 16 that the best of the good times will see us through the worst of the bad. The Organic Grower has to reflect all of these times, the good and the Green manures and nitrous not so good, it cannot avoid doing so – it’s there in the title. oxides...... 18 How much simpler our life would be if we could just concentrate on doing what we are here to do, and how great it would be if we got the Relay green manures...... 21 credit we feel we deserve. After all, even though it may not be enough in itself, as a statement of commitment to environmental sanity the Fruit, veg and trees...... 23 act of growing organically is worth a thousand lifestyle magazines Planning and the organic and any amount of celebrity professions of “green consumerism”. But somehow there is always something in the way, some obstacle or grower...... 26 other. There’s soil and plant and animal – fire, air and water too - the indissoluble and timeless circle within whose disinterested pattern Two years in Indonesia...... 28 and flow we live our working lives as it holds us in its sway. That we accept. And then there’s man . . . Squash in storage...... 30 The organic bureaucracy we can put up with – these people are our Wireworm in theory and fellow travellers, may even be our friends. Whether we find the practice...... 32 contact a help or a hindrance the purpose, which is certification, is something few of us can do without. From the setting of standards ...and as a current affliction...... 38 to the inspection of their observance we are, or can be, participants. If you’d care to participate – look inside these pages. Then there is Defra, Book reviews...... 40 which probably doesn’t impinge much on most of us, horticulture being eternally at the back of agricultural consciousness in the U.K. Field notes and queries...... 41

The need for producerism...... 42

Goodbye cockleshell heroes...... 43

Events...... 44

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 A couple of years ago the department was on record as saying that it did not recognise any threat to our country’s food supply. Now it’s not so sure – you can read about that inside too. You may question Defra’s relevance, but at least it is asking us for our views. NEWS And then there is Dow Chemicals. They are in the News as well, not once but twice. They’ve brought us Spinosad, a Aminopyralid microbial insecticide which is coming into general organic acceptance. Should the SA adopt it, or should it not? Like it or suspended! not, questions like these go to the heart of what we do, where In what can be seen as something of a victory for the OGA principal and practice meet or part, and we shouldn’t try to the Pesticides Safety Directorate suspended the use and sale of avoid them. products containing the hormone herbicide aminopyralid on Dow were once satirised on a controversial Soil Association the 24th July. The PSD said: “in response to the concerns…. poster (controversial within the SA, that is) as Dour Chemicals, about damage believed to result from these residues, PSD has manufacturers of Dusbin. Now they are taking first place been in contact with Dow AgroSciences Limited, the approval in our news section, just across the page, as the bringers holder and data owner for the majority of aminopyralid of aminopyralid, the herbicide which really has caused products approved in the UK. Dow AgroSciences have asked controversy – not to say consternation. Did they ask us? So for their approvals to be modified whilst the situation is under now we have more questions of principle - does contamination investigation.” mean decertification? (for instance) and of practice – whatever Once the Observer had exposed the problem on 29th June in next? (for example). There are other questions too – why does the article ‘Home-grown veg ruined by toxic herbicide’, we anybody need this stuff, who does it benefit, are these people contacted members and it became clear the problem was huge, criminally insane, or are they just criminals? with the potential to seriously affect organic growers. The The Organic Grower is a membership magazine and it’s good OGA, Soil Association, Garden Organic (HDRA) and others to be able to record that the members – who are the OGA lobbied hard to get the product withdrawn. The OGA press – have put a stop to this particular nonsense. As Grower release ‘Growers angered by toxic manure threat’ reporting magazine put it “a week after the OGA’s request, PSD banned our call for a ban was widely reported in the farming/ the product”. It might not have been just us, but it’s great to horticultural press and linked by Grower magazine to its get the credit. We can’t say if the withdrawal of aminopyralid subsequent withdrawal. is temporary or permanent, but it’s one less obstacle in the For more, see article by Alan Schofield inside. way for now.

So there’s the news, all of it that fits, and plenty of the other – trees and fruit, gas and green manures, planning in Dorset New inputs allowed and organic cooperation in Indonesia, life and death in the fields - and lots more besides. You have three months to read in EU regulation it in, but only two months in which to let us know what you In May this year a number of new inputs: Spinosad, copper think or to give us your story. octanoate, potassium bicarbonate, and ethylene to prevent We make no apology for printing two reactions to the sprouting of stored onions and potatoes, were added to the consumptive market that surrounds us. They look at the EU regulation 2092/91, approving them for use in organic matter in very different ways, and both are inspired by a deep farming. Individual certifying bodies must now decide understanding of the truths of organic production. whether to incorporate the changes into their own standards.

Spinosad

Our favourite company of the month Dow AgroScience Ltd makes its second appearance in this OG with its microbial insecticide Spinosad which is manufactured by fermentation using the Actinomycete bacteria Saccharopolyspora spinosa. The strain used has been chemically mutated to produce more product, enabling economic production. In the regulation it may only be used, “if produced by strains not genetically

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 modified” and “only when measures are taken to minimise the toxicity or persistence in the environment. The EU stated that risk to key parasitoids and to minimise the risk of development potassium bicarbonate is found to be essential against various of resistance.” Though currently coming under the ‘Restricted fungal diseases in a range of crops and may contribute to the Inputs’ category, needing approval of the certification body, reduction of the use of copper and sulphur in certain crop- this will disappear under the new regulation, and products pest combinations. will effectively be permitted with retrospective justification. The Soil Association is currently considering its position on Ethylene Spinosad as there are ‘considerable environmental reasons for not allowing its use.’ There are concerns over its fate in soil Ethylene has been allowed under the new regulation to and water and its wide, non-specific activity against insects, prevent the sprouting of stored onions and potatoes. It is including beneficial insects such as bees. Subsidiary concerns already allowed for use in ripening bananas. It is claimed include the use of GMOs in its manufacture and the other that use of ethylene would extend the season for home grown constituents in its formulation, and the risk of it being seen as organic onions, giving a corresponding reduction in imports a precedent for the use of other microbial products in organic and an improved carbon footprint. production. Jill Vaughan, chairman of the SA’s Horticultural Standards Up until now, Spinosad was not permitted under EU Committee, would like to hear your opinions on all these regulation for use in organic production. There was, however products, particularly from those of you who are SA licensees. considerable confusion over the interpretation of the existing She would like to know if any growers see a need for regulation, authorities in New Zealand and Argentina Spinosad, either to control pests that are not manageable by had licensed it for use on organic products, under their any other means or to prevent resistance to other pesticides EU programmes, as they had interpreted the regulation as e.g. Bt. Do growers feel that the Soil Association should not allowing products of microorganisms. However, the majority allow Spinosad, even though this could put SA Licensees at a of certifiers in the EOCC believed that it should not have been disadvantage when competing against imports and/or British permitted as microorganisms are permitted for biological produce certified by other bodies? It would be useful to know control but not the products of microorganisms. which sector each comment comes from e.g. large/small grower, wholesaler, importer, direct marketing/wholesale/ SACL has been minded not to accept Spinosad as the Soil multiples and which crops and pest combinations if any you Association ‘are attempting to eventually phase out all think it would be useful for. Also, if you have an opinion on pesticides, and this guides our work on the issue of new copper octanoate, ethylene for potato and onion storage or pesticides.’ Consultation, however, has been overwhelmingly potassium bicarbonate, then Jill would like to hear from you. in support of the Soil Association accepting it, with considerable lobbying from larger commercial organic growers. They claim Please send comments directly to Jill Vaughan that other member states would have an unfair competitive [email protected]. advantage if it is not permitted here. Support centres on its use for control of important pests: thrips in salad onions and leeks, and flea beetles in brassicas. Its supporters say it is likely IFOAM debates to be less damaging to predators and parasites of aphids than pyrethrum. Protoplast Fusion The following motion was accepted unanimously (four Copper octanoate abstentions, no objections) by the General Assembly of IFOAM Copper octanoate is fixed copper in combination with soap. at Modena in Italy: “The IFOAM GA 2008 confirms that cell It has been added to the new EU regulation as it is a new fusion, including protoplast and cytoplast fusion breeding formulation of copper that can be used for the same purpose techniques, do not comply with the principles of organic as other copper compounds that are already permitted. The agriculture. Therefore we urge the IFOAM World Board to total amount of copper to be applied per season is lower when develop clear guidelines on how to deal with varieties derived copper octanoate is used. It has been used in North America from cell fusion, including protoplast and cytoplast fusion for some time. breeding techniques.” The IFOAM definition of genetic engineering (GM) as Potassium bicarbonate formulated in the IFOAM Basic Standards includes cell fusion. So within the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Potassium bicarbonate was approved by the ACOS committee Movements (IFOAM) there seems consensus on the fact that as it is a commodity chemical with no known issues related to cell fusion does not comply to the IFOAM principles as GM is

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 banned. However, the problem is how to deal with it in practice since varieties bred with this techniques are not labelled as Benn Launches GM and the use of these varieties is not explicitly forbidden in the EU regulation on organic farming. Some countries, but not Debate on UK the UK, have green or red variety lists to show which varieties are bred or not with cell fusion techniques, but most countries Food Security in a have not taken any measures. The biodynamic movement Changing World banned the use of hybrid seeds created using protoplast or cytoplast fusion techniques on Demeter certified (biodynamic) A debate on how to continue to ensure a secure and sustainable farms and gardens in July 2005. They argue that protoplast supply of food in the future has been launched by Hilary fusion, which involves taking cell tissue from a specific and Benn. unrelated species that carries a male sterile gene and fusing Publishing a new Defra discussion paper, “Ensuring the UK’s with tissue from the plant concerned, is carried out either food security in a changing world”, Hilary Benn stressed that, using a chemical agent or by applying an electric current and while the UK was currently secure in its food supply, it was is on a par with genetic modification. FiBL-CH has published important to consider whether the UK food supply chain a report on this issue - www.fibl.ch. is sufficiently resilient to deal with short term shocks and The IFOAM World Congress on animal and plant breeding sufficiently strong to face long term challenges. 25-28 August 2009 in Santa Fe, New Mexico will discuss The paper – which will feed into a more detailed statement the consequences for the use of varieties bred with these on food security policy expected later this year - poses five techniques in the organic sector and formulate proposals for key questions for the public and industry to comment on. In guidelines. particular the Government is keen to hear the views of the The European Consortium for Organic plant breeding agricultural sector, consumer groups and food retailers. To (ECO-PB) considers that IFOAM must also now give clear this end Defra will be holding a series of meetings, workshops guidance regarding the nature of organic plant breeding. It and events to encourage discussion. would otherwise be in danger of leaving the door open to all The paper also suggests a set of indicators that could be used manner of inappropriate claims regarding the term, organic in the future to assess food security. Views are being invited plant breeding. To make a public statement on organic plant on these indicators and how they could be used. breeding methods, they say it is vital that the current draft Hilary Benn said: “The UK currently has a secure food standards on plant breeding become full standards as soon supply. In fact we are more self-sufficient now than we were as possible. in the 1950s. But recent food price rises across the world have shone a light on the challenges all countries face in ensuring food supplies at reasonable prices, particularly as the global Seedy business population rises and the impacts of climate change and rising De Ruiter Seeds, one of the top breeding companies in the oil prices are felt. That’s why it’s sensible to think about the world, has been acquired by Monsanto. De Ruiter Seeds impact of these challenges so that we can plan effectively for breeds, produces and sells hybrid vegetable seeds, including the future and identify any further steps that may be needed, organic seed, for greenhouse crops such as tomato, cucumber, bearing in mind that as well as domestic production – which is aubergine, pepper, melon and rootstocks. In 2005 Monsanto very important – we also rely on being able to import food.” purchased Seminis, the world’s largest vegetable seed The analysis of the UK food chain contained in the paper shows company, and became the biggest seed company in the world. that the situation in the UK cannot be viewed in isolation. UK Monsanto will start to merge the De Ruiter Seeds business and global food security are interlinked, particularly in relation into its vegetable seeds division alongside Seminis, which to world food markets and international energy supplies. serves the field-veg seed market and the International Seed Group, Inc. (ISG), which serves customers of regional seed However, UK agriculture has a vital contribution to make to businesses. food security both in Britain and internationally. The paper outlines the importance of the sector to the UK economy and its role in managing Britain’s unique landscape and biodiversity.

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The key questions posed in the report are: UK lobbies to keep . Whether Defra has correctly identified the challenges facing global and UK food security. pesticides on the 2. What the views of the food industry and wider public are about the action the UK Government is taking table globally and domestically to address these challenges In July, the British government began a media blitz designed and ensure food security. to undercut the European Union’s new proposal to remove . What further role the agricultural, retail, and food the “most hazardous” pesticides from food grown in the EU. service sectors can play in ensuring UK food security. 4. Whether the food security indicators cover the right Conventional growers have been up in arms over the areas and measure the right things. implementation of EC directive 91/414. Although there have 5. What steps we should take together if the indicators been formal discussions in Brussels for the last two years it suggest there is a problem. seems to have taken many by surprise. In June the European Commission passed a proposal which would ban 20 per cent The five key indicators of food supply are: of the farmer’s chemical armoury. To the chagrin of many . global availability; farmers and growers, MEPs not only approved but also 2. diversity of supply; doubled the list, and paved the way for doubling it again in . food chain resilience; five years. 4. affordability; and The proposal would introduce cut-off criteria to ensure; 5. safety and confidence. • No chemicals, carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction (CMR), unless exposure ‘negligible.’ The report also includes a broad consideration of the factors that contribute to food security and historical and future • No endocrine disruptors unless exposure ‘negligible.’ trends. • No persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

“Ensuring UK food security in a changing world” is available • No persistent bioaccumulating toxins (PBT) or very on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/ persistent, very bioaccumulating toxins (vPvB). foodstrategy/security.htm The Pesticides Safety Directive (PSD) carried out an assessment # To take part in the debate, e-mail foodmatters.security@ on the impact of the directive on UK crop protection. The defra.gov.uk. The closing date for contributions is 15 implications in their view for conventional horticulture are; September 2008. • It would remove the majority of currently approved herbicides for weed control in ‘minor crops’ such as carrots, parsnips and onions and effectively make UK Community horticulture unsustainable due to weed infestation. orchards handbook • Disease control on crops such as strawberries significantly affected due to loss of options for control of black spot, Common ground have drawn on twenty years of championing botrytis and mildew. orchards and the experiences of many people who have created community orchards, to produce this new handbook. • Non-approval of pyrethroids, neonicotinoid seed The Handbook offers philosophy and practical advice to those treatments and various other (only recently approved) inspired to become community orchardists. alternate mode of action chemicals would cause highly significant impact across all areas of arable and A5 spiral bound, 226 pp, 90 colour photos. £13 incl p&p direct horticultural crops. from Common Ground, Gold Hill House, 21 High Street, Shaftesbury, Dorset SP7 8JE • Potatoes – seed potato growing unlikely; ware potato yields severely reduced with pressure for PCN-free land http://www.england-in-particular.info (scarce), and very long rotation periods. The long-term storage of potatoes in the UK without chlorpropham would result in unacceptable loss of quality, especially for processed crops.

• Many horticultural crops would be uneconomic to grow, particularly if supermarkets were unwilling to

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 compromise on the various quality requirements, which currently result in crop rejection. Rotenone • Control of the majority of insect pests and virus vectors withdrawal would no longer be possible by chemical means and the The EC made a decision in April to withdraw all plant pest burden would build year on year as the alternatives protection products containing rotenone from general use are not as effective. within the EU. Also known as derris, it is a naturally occurring The report makes no mention of organic production and chemical extracted from the roots of several tropical and the fact that successful production, even to supermarket subtropical plant species. specifications, is possible without a chemical armoury. They Rotenone has been in the restricted category of the standards do suggest, however that increased use of substances such as and growers have had to provide evidence both that it is Bacillus thuringiensis, fatty acids and pyrethrins could lead to necessary and that other methods have failed to resolve the increased problems with resistance, already present for many problem. It is highly biodegradable and photosensitive, of these alternatives. which means it is destroyed by sunlight in a few days and The Pesticides Action Network (PAN) reported that against does not leave residues on plants. It is, however, known to all logic, the PSD’s principal toxicologist rushed to assure have toxic effects on fish and wildfowl, but because it breaks journalists that removing the most carcinogenic, mutagenic down rapidly in soil and water it is not thought to be a and reprotoxic pesticides would achieve “no significant health groundwater pollutant. The Soil Association put a temporary benefit for consumers.” PAN Europe spokesman Elliott Cannell ban on its use in 2001 as a response to a study linking its use called the government’s initiative “extremely disappointing. with Parkinson’s disease, but later re-instated it. Cancer is the second biggest cause of death in Europe so it Due to its high cost it is not widely used. The use of rotenone makes real sense to ensure that carcinogenic and mutagenic has been declining in organic farming with only 4 SA licensees pesticides are no longer common contaminants in fruits and applying for permission to use it last year, as compared to vegetables.” With France, Germany, Spain and Italy supporting 16 in 2004. The UK has three professional and five amateur the new law, Cannell says, “it’s an insult to common sense that products that must now be revoked in order to withdraw these the UK should try to hold back progress across the EU.” products from the market and comply with the EC Decision. The UK is calling for cut-off criteria to be replaced by risk Approval for advertisement, sale and supply by any person assessments and there is the opportunity for the regulation will be revoked / withdrawn from 10 October 2008. to be blocked or changed in its second reading. Labour Approval will be given until 10 October 2009 for the storage MEPs have been mobilised to raise concerns in the European and use. However, rotenone has been granted essential use in Socialist group, which had previously been voting with the the UK until 31 October 2011 on apple, pear, peach, cherry, Greens on the issue. If the regulation goes through, it will take ornamentals and potato only. Advertisement, sale and supply effect in 2010. are approved until 31 October 2010 for essential uses.

New biofumigant Soil Association’s crop available new independent Boston Seeds have introduced Vittasso brown mustard to the UK, to use as a soil conditioner and biofumigant. Biofumigation is Standards Board the process of using plant derived volatile chemicals to suppress soil-borne pathogens, nematodes, insects and weeds (see now complete Tozers report p13.). A Vittasso crop acts as a natural source for The Soil Association have announced the appointment of Rob fumigation and is most effectively used as a green manure, potato Haward, operations director at Riverford Organic Vegetables, disease suppressant or organic catch crop. “We are just beginning as grower representative on its standards board, following an to advise the wider industry through contractors, packers and open recruitment process. This appointment completes the agronomists, about the natural benefits of Vittasso biofumigation. Soil Association’s new, independent standards board. Initial response is very positive and I expect to see Vittasso crops being used extensively and especially by potato growers and Rob Haward, operations director of Riverford Organic organic farmers” said Mr Wallis of Boston Seeds. Vittasso costs Vegetables, said: “I am delighted to have been appointed. I hope £65 per hectare, which is a similar price to other green manure my input will be of value to the Soil Association in enabling crops like Italian ryegrass, forage rye or white mustard them to continue to lead the way on standards development.

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 This process is essential in order to protect consumers, while balancing the technical constraints of growers.” City Slickers The Soil Association Standards Board is responsible for running scared, but maintaining and developing all of the Association’s organic standards. Current issues under consideration include: arable land prices • airfreight and the possibility of linking this with ethical trade (to ensure airfreight really does benefit African, and reach record high other, farmers); UK farmland prices surged at the fastest pace in the RICS’ rural market survey’s history during the first half of 2008, but • the Soil Association’s response to the confusion likely to lifestyle buyers retreated as the credit crunch deepened. be caused by the new mandatory EU logo; The farmland market jumped forward, with the average price • the development of specific standards for glasshouse per ha. rising by 24 percent (the fastest pace in the survey’s production; history) from £10,439 to £12,965 in the first half of 2008 and • the creation of common international standards for health by 47 percent year on year. Arable land rose by 32 percent and beauty products. to £14,453 from £10,439 and pasture land rose by 16 percent

Anna Bradley, chair of the Soil Association Standards Board, said: to £11477 from £9929. Sharp increases in commodity prices continue to encourage farm investors to expand production “I welcome Rob to the standards board. With the new standards or enter the market as purchasers. board complete, I hope all our stakeholders will be confident that their interests will be understood at the standards board The net balance of chartered surveyors reporting an increase table. We can now develop the Soil Association standards in demand for residential farmland fell for the first time since with the vigour, transparency and accountability expected of 2005 from 50 percent to -3 percent while demand for non- such an organisation and its public interest responsibilities.” residential farmland remained buoyant at 65 percent. The net balance of surveyors expecting price rises in residential farmland fell from 30 percent to -25 percent. There is an The Organic Top expectation that lifestyle buyers will continue to retreat while the challenging financial climate persists.

Fruit Group The number of farmland sales surged by 50 percent year The Organic Top Fruit Group was re-formed by the Soil on year and farmland availability picked up by in both the Association in 2006 with the support of Defra to act as a focal residential and non-residential sectors. Sharp rising costs in point for commercial fruit growers. More specifically the food and commodity prices have pushed input prices upwards group aimed to resulting in marginal farms becoming unprofitable.

• Update the “Guide to Organic Top Fruit Production”. This RICS spokesperson, Julian Sayers said “Ever rising commodity is now updated and available from the Soil Association prices have pushed the price of farmland to record highs as (free to SA members) farmers and investors compete for arable land. However, the

• Provide opportunities to growers to network and days of the lifestyle buyer are on the wane. The credit crunch exchange technical knowledge is putting an end to city expansion into the country as the precarious financial situation has made city slickers re-think • Improve communication within the sector to facilitate their lifestyle priorities.” relationships with for instance buyers / certifying bodies

• Disseminate information around the group on latest research / regulatory information Love Local Food The group has been largely successful in these aims, and has An organic and local food initiative, which combines the held a yearly meeting as well as contributing to the SA stand resources of two farms on the edge of Exeter, has been granted at the National Fruit show. The group will continue even £10,000 by Awards for All towards a 3 month feasibility trial. though the funding has come to an end in Aug 08, and will OGA member Martyn Bragg of Shillingford Organics and his function mainly through a group email. If you would like to brother Andy of West Town Farm, Ide, together with other join this group then please contact Ben Raskin (0117 314 5185 interested people in the district, plan to take good food (and or [email protected]) the inspiration and belief that underlie it) out into the locality, and particularly to those parts that seldom see it.

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The project – Love Local Food - is being set up as a not-for- growth performance through the correct misting of nutrients, profit Community Interest Company and aims to get under the accurate balancing of pH and the delivery of the correct way in September. A van will be fitted out as a mobile shop amount of heat, light and water. and educational centre, extolling the benefits of eating fresh A pilot scheme is producing vegetables within the company’s organic and local food and its importance for the health of greenhouse production plant in El Paso, Texas. Plants can be consumer and environment. Information will be available on simultaneously harvested and planted with no interruption to healthy eating, with a particular focus on making use of what the process. To date the system has successfully grown leafy is in season, and there will be activities on offer to engage lettuce, spinach, micro-greens, a variety of herbs, mint, beets, children with the project’s message. Regular routes will be strawberries, wheatgrass, alfalfa and certain strains of rice. established with the van making 6 or 7 hour-long stops each They suggest that lettuce can be grown in a 32-day growing day, both in areas which can be expected to be receptive to cycle at the rate of 4 million heads of lettuce per acre per year what is on offer and in those where there is little or no natural at a cost which may be less than field grown lettuce. interest. Shillingford provides facilities for small-scale organic catering businesses – currently used for both bread and soup They claim that the system: making - so there is scope to add to the produce of the two • Produces approximately 20 times the normal production farms. Other items that cannot be supplied locally will be volume for field crops ethically sourced. • Requires 5% of the normal water requirements for field As well as taking the message out beyond the farm the project crops will seek to stimulate participation in linked activities on • Can be built on non-arable lands and close to major city the farms themselves. West Town Farm already encourages markets community involvement through its well-established Organic Arts project, and both farms host educational visits. Farm- • Can work in a variety of environments: urban, suburban, centred courses such as vegetable gardening and bread countryside, desert etc. making will also be on offer. • Does not use herbicides or pesticides The coordinator of Love Local Food, Christine Duff, • Will have very significant operating and capital cost summarised the impetus behind the initiative when she savings over field agriculture described how a group of 3 and 4 year olds had recently helped dig up potatoes – “ Their excitement at finding them • Will drastically reduce transportation costs to market was amazing – beforehand they hadn’t a clue where potatoes resulting in further savings, higher quality and fresher came from. We see at the farms how little people know about foods on delivery, and less transportation pollution food and where it comes from, but we also see how willingly • Will be easily scalable from small to very large food groups of all ages learn”. production situations.

Their website says ‘Vertical growing systems can be applied in combination with existing hydroponic, and greenhouse High Density technologies which already address many aspects of the Vertical Growth! sustainable urban production challenge (i.e., soil-free, organic production, closed loop systems that maximize water and Valcent Products Inc., which has a trading arm in Launceston, nutrient efficiencies, etc.).’ Cornwall, introduced its revolutionary High Density Vertical We don’t know what Growth (HDVG) system into the UK, at The Royal Show in definition of organic July. They are marketing the system as providing a solution they could be using! to rapidly increasing food costs caused by transportation/fuel And though they use all prices spiralling upwards with the cost of oil. They also claim the right sustainability that they can produce food much more ‘efficiently’ and with buzz words, this must greater food value than in agricultural field conditions. be as far removed from The HDVG system grows plants in closely spaced pockets on organic as it is possible clear, vertical panels that are moving on an overhead conveyor to be. Proof, if any was system. The system is designed to provide maximum sunlight needed that local is not and precisely correct nutrients to each plant. Ultraviolet always best and there light and filter systems exclude the need for herbicides and can be such a thing as pesticides. Sophisticated control systems gain optimum ‘local crap’. Scary stuff.

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 • Why is reduction and re-use so much better than Producing and recycling? Processing herbs • Where is the energy used in getting vegetables from farm to plate? to the Health and • Should our vans be running on biodiesel? Beauty market • Should we put up windmills, build an anaerobic digester or change our lightbulbs? The Soil Association ran an event in July in collaboration with Pat Wylde and Mike Brook at the Organic Herb Trading This is a useful site with a lot of information that growers can Company on “producing and processing herbs for the health use, either in their own businesses or in communicating what and beauty market”. There are many challenges associated they do to their consumers. with supplying this market, many of them similar to the STOP PRESS: Riverford Organic Vegetables has been named usual challenges vegetable growers face such as consistency as one of the South West region’s big hitters. Listed in the top of product and competition from cheaper Eastern European 150 companies for the first time, at number 102. Over the past suppliers. three years sales have grown 72% annually, with more than The relatively small number of buyers and processors means 45,000 boxes delivered each week, according to the Western that it can be a challenging market for smaller growers to Morning News. break into. However a group of growers who attended the event have decided to examine the possibility of working cooperatively to try to do just that. Henbane: new If you would like to get further information on the group then contact Grant Calvin [email protected] ingredient for salad bags? Riverford In an amazing gaffe, TV chef Antony Worrall Thompson urged readers of Healthy & Organic Living to chuck a handful sustainable of henbane into their salads. Henbane is a toxic wild plant that can cause hallucinations, violent seizures and even death. development Worrall Thompson said: “I apologise to all those I have upset. It is one of those embarrassing moments that I regret. It was one project of those clumsy mistakes. I have scribbled something down and it has been misconstrued.” Healthy & Organic Living has The Riverford Sustainable Development Project is a two-year now had to write to all its subscribers and put a message on collaboration with the University of Exeter and the Technology its website after realising the error. It says: “Antony is very Strategy Board under the Knowledge Transfer partnership sorry for causing confusion and had a quite different plant in programme. mind.” The project has come up with a number of answers to those The plant he had in mind was thorny questions that discerning eco-conscious consumers fat hen. Perhaps AWT and and growers agonise over. They have created the www. Healthy and Organic riverfordenvironment.co.uk website to explain what they Living magazine have learnt, what they still need to find out and how they are should employ a using that knowledge to make Riverford a more sustainable grower as reality business. Amongst the questions they try to answer are; c o n s u l t a n t , • Is it better to buy a hot house tomato in April than one before someone trucked from Spain? gets hurt. • Is a paper bag better for the environment than a plastic one?

• How much difference would it make if all my vegetables were grown locally?

• Are compostable plastics all they are cracked up to be?

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 A new threat to vegetable growers everywhere For vegetable growers everywhere that use brought-in manures and green waste composts there is a relatively new and potentially very damaging threat. This threat comes in the form of hormone herbicides based on aminopyralid and clopyralid.

Aminopyralid is the active ingredient in a few agricultural causing in April of this year when I saw a picture of a young broadleaf herbicides and is under suspicion as the culprit tomato plant showing hormone damage. By the time we got that has been devastating vegetables grown this year by back to mid June the web was full of reports from amateur growers gardeners and allotment holders. It has come to their holdings linking damage with aminopyralid contamination. as brought-in manures, probably mainly stable manures, On the 16th June the Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) posted and has destroyed susceptible crops. It would appear that regulatory update 15/2008 on its website stating that they had aminopyralid once applied to grassland binds to the lignin in received a number of reports about growth irregularities in plant material and is capable of passing through the animal mainly pea, bean and potato crops from allotment holders. On eating the forage so that it is excreted in the manure. Here it the 11th July the PSD then posted regulatory update 18/2008 remains until spread on land, where it once again becomes giving more information on the active ingredient and stating active distorting the growth of herbaceous plants. It would that “vegetables grown using contaminated manures should appear that it can remain dormant for a year, so aminopyralid be safe to eat” This was the statement that did it for me. On originally applied in spring 2007 is still capable of doing 15th July I wrote on behalf of The Organic Growers Alliance damage when contaminated manure is applied a year or more to the chairs of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the later. Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the PSD calling for an I was first alerted to the problem aminopyralid was allegedly immediate public comment on the safety of this product and

A thing of the past? Photo: Phil Sumption Phil Photo:

Page 10 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 for its immediate withdrawal from use.

As I write this on the 9th August I still have not had a reply from any of them save the HSE, who informed me that this was a PSD issue and that my letter had been forwarded to them. On the 24th July regulatory update 23/2008 was issued stating that the manufacturers Dow AgroSciences had asked for their approvals to be modified. This the PSD accepted and all products containing aminopyralid were suspended from sale, supply and use whilst further investigations take place. Dow AgroSciences have posted a note on their website which states “the suspension will remain in place until assurances can be given that the product and subsequent treated forage Aminopyralid damage in potateos and resultant animal wastes will be handled correctly”. And here lies the dilemma Dow ‘s case is that adequate warning is on the product label that manures should not be used on susceptible crops. But they are always going to end up being used by someone. The grass treated in the spring will be sold as forage maybe to a merchant who will then sell it on. No one is going to ask if it has been treated and in many cases farmers use contractors to spray and may not even know what has been used. By the time the manure is put out at the stable entrance with a sign “Free manure” on it, it is up to 12-18 months later and it should not be the responsibility of the gardener or allotment and in tomatoes holder to enquire if it is safe to use.

This situation has caused such a fuss that questions have and green wastes to carry a passport stating all treatments been asked in the House of Commons by Paul Burstow Lib received. If we continue to allow the use of such persistent Dem MP for Sutton and Cheam. There is an e petition to get residual hormone weedkillers then all off-farm sources of it permanently withdrawn running - see http://petitions. organic matter pose a potential threat. pm.gov.uk/Aminopyralid/ This has already over 1000 The Composting Association (now re-branded as the signatures and runs until October. We should all support this Association for Organics Recycling) has already opened an demand by signing up now and encourage our customers and investigation into the situation and is asking all biowaste friends to do the same. processors and local authorities not to knowingly compost Clopyralid is a similar compound with apparently a similar materials that have been treated. As clopyralid is available for habit. The potentially damaging problem with clopyralid amateur use then who can tell what is in the green or brown is that it is licensed for use on amenity land and is also the bin going back to the recyclers? active ingredient in a lot of herbicides available for amateur I will be writing again to the PSD in the light of the suspension. use. There are 43 products licensed for use in the UK based Nothing short of an all-out ban on these two substances will on clopyralid. It therefore has the potential to enter the green suffice. We must be able to use off-farm sources of organic waste streams, a valuable source of organic material for material in horticulture now and in the future. vegetable growers of all denominations. For now my advice to all bringing-in sources of organic material Evidence on the web suggests that this product has entered from off the farm is to ask the question - have these herbicides green waste streams in the States as early as 2001, so it is only been used? If there is any doubt then do not use it! It would a matter of time before this happens here. also be in everyone’s interest to do a simple germination test In a world of dwindling resources and ever higher fertiliser using pea or tomato seed to check the material before use in costs more and more growers, professional and amateur, will the field. These products will be waiting, bound to the lignin be turning to sources of organic matter to supply some or all in manures now waiting to be spread on soils next spring, but of their nutrient needs. Indeed it is the present government’s at least now we know what the threat is. mantra to “reuse and recycle” .It is unrealistic of chemical Alan Schofield companies or government regulators to expect manures

Page 11 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Charles Dowding’s Open Day, Lower Farm, Somerset - 7th June 2008. Charles needs no introduction in the world of organic growing to basal rots as air can flow freely around the stem. The results . Knowing his reputation as the originator of the box scheme were there to see - fresh, perpetually juvenile lettuce planted and a pioneering advocate of no-dig gardening systems, I for November under plastic still producing well, seven months one had long wished to visit Lower Farm. I’d heard the stories later in June. of weedless mulched beds and thriving crops grown on land Susie put on a fantastic spread for lunch of bread baked from affected only by the slightest touch of human hands and was freshly-ground spelt grain (from his brother in law’s holding delighted when he agreed to host an OGA open day. next door) along with local cheeses, and of course fresh salad Charles’s holding blurs the line between two often very distinct from the garden. Following this a discussion began on The worlds - growing for market and gardening. No machinery Market. Charles reiterated that in real terms the price of organic is used here bar a lawn mower. Planting, weed control and veg had not increased in line with the wider economy and harvesting are achieved with a handful of mainly copper tools. stressed that it was harder than ever to make a decent living out We saw neat rows of crops grown on slightly mounded beds, of growing fresh produce. The subject of people’s perception of easily accessible without the need for foot traffic and resulting food and food quality was raised. Charles gave us his interesting soil compaction. Over-wintered onions, calabrese and parsnips perspective that there is not enough emphasis on nutrition in were thriving in the compost-rich soils. This is no hobby organics today, and that some have to a certain extent been garden however, his 1 ¼ acres produce tens of thousands of distracted away from the basic principles of organic agriculture pounds worth of salad crops every year, plus a variety of other as laid down by the founding members of the Soil Association. vegetables for local markets including around twenty boxes. It was a great pleasure to spend time on Charles’ holding and I Charles described growing these other crops as more of a service would again like to thank him for sharing his time and wisdom than a source of income.. with those present. Reflecting the quality of his own growing his recently published For more information check out www.charlesdowding.co.uk books are extremely useful to both the grower and the home gardener. Next to immaculate beds of vari-coloured salad James Clapp crops are small trial plots used for his work for the RHS and no dig-garden courses. Experiments and demonstrations included clearing ground by deep applications of compost and pioneering areas that had been subjected to heavy compaction from arable machinery. Charles has successfully encouraged his soil’s natural regenerative properties to grow crops in adverse conditions.

Charles employs facets of biodynamic agriculture such as sowing and planting by the moon’s cycles. He also applies Horn Silica (preparation 500) along with rock dust to optimise the nutrient content of his produce.

Having started out in 1982 with no formal training, Charles has used his own experience and observation to create unique systems that work for him. Perhaps most notably for me he harvests lettuce and other salad crops by continuously removing the lower leaves, never allowing the plant to mature or the leaves to become too large for the consumer (or the bag). This way the plant produces far more leaf (one a day in the warmer months) than if it were to be cut as a whole. Quality is retained, slugs have no easy dark hideaway and the plant is less susceptible Charles Dowding Photo: Sonia Oliver Sonia Photo:

Page 12 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 OGA visit to Tozer Seeds – 17th July 2008 For those of us who attended the day at Tozer Seeds in deepest Surrey a real treat was in store. A dry window of weather meant that few growers were able to make it, but with attendees from Defra, Plant Health Solutions, Organic Research Centre- Elm Farm, Garden Organic (HDRA) as well as a contingent from Tozers, good discussion ensued. It was my first visit to Pyports and as a grower who has purchased seed from Tozers over the last twenty years it gave a fascinating insight into the UK’s largest independent vegetable breeder.

Dr. Frances Gawthrop, Director of Plant Breeding at Tozer Radishes are thought to have originated in Western Asia and Seeds Ltd, kicked off the morning session with an introduction were a common food in Egypt long before the pyramids were to plant breeding, explaining how it is done. Vegetables built. They appear not to have reached England until 1545. Tozer are either in-breeders or out-breeders. Inbreeders are self- have recently rejuvenated their radish breeding programme pollinating plants in which the female part of the flower can be and are working very hard to produce new hybrid varieties to successfully fertilised with pollen from the same plant, usually meet with current demands. As well as red round and French the same flower. Examples of in-breeding crops are lettuce, Breakfast types they are looking at different coloured roots tomatoes, French beans and peas. Outbreeders are cross- and have introduced white and purple globe varieties. New pollinating plants in which the seed-producing, female parent radish varieties are created using natural sterility. is normally fertilised with pollen that comes from a different Runner beans were grown purely as ornamental vines in 16th plant. F1 hybrids can be developed by crosses between inbred century Europe. They were selected to flower under longer lines. With some out-breeding crops, both open pollinated varieties and F1 hybrids can be developed. Examples are cabbage, butternut squash, parsnips and leeks.

Frances explained that the market is not large enough for them to consider organic plant breeding, but said ‘we are aware of the needs of organic growers’. All Tozer varieties are produced naturally, they do not use cytoplast fusion. Cytoplast fusion involves taking cell tissue from a specific and unrelated species that carries a male sterile gene and fusing with tissue from the plant concerned. It is carried out either using a chemical agent or by applying an electric current and many argue, particularly the biodynamic movement, that it is on a par with genetic modification.

Brassicas are very important commercially. The first wild cabbage is thought to have been brought into Europe about 600BC by groups of Celtic wanderers. We have come a long way since with a multitude of different types and sophisticated breeding techniques. With traditional breeding it can take 7 generations - 15 years - to get a new line. With anther culture, where immature buds are plated on to agar, it is possible to develop hundreds of lines very quickly so that time to new release can be reduced to 18 months. Several cabbage and Brussels sprout varieties have been released using this Frances Gawthrop explains the intricacies of method, starting with cabbage Pyramid in the late 1990’s, and runner bean pollination continuing to this day.

Page 13 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 days because these would have been the only plants to set seed. They were not used for culinary purposes until the late 1800s. Since then continual selections have been made for improved pod quality and yield. There are no hybrid varieties of runner bean. The pollination of runner beans is a painstaking process whereby open flowers are taken off, the flowers are enclosed in a bread bag and pollen transferred with a cocktail stick. The DUS testing (Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability) system, that is necessary for new varieties to be accepted onto the National List can be very hard to get through. With runner beans a new variety needs to be uniform for flower colour, Cleaning coriander seed at Tozers mottle and stringiness. Breeding is not an easy process and selecting for one characteristic, e.g. straightness by selecting been identified. However it was not until the 1990’s that the for pod wall fibre can affect other qualities like taste and method to use this character became available. Oarsman cooking. was Tozer’s first hybrid leek variety and it continues to be a Tozer Seeds have done a lot of work on breeding cucurbits popular choice with growers. and have developed Butternut squash varieties, which are In common with many seed companies Tozer had their fingers extremely well suited to growing in the UK. Modern day burnt when the decision to continue to allow derogations for squash originate from wild squash from Guatemala and non-organic seed was made. They lost money with unsold Mexico and have been consumed for over 10,000 years. The organic seed. All of their breeding and trialling takes place flowers of cucurbits have to be bagged just before they are under conventional conditions and varieties they consider about to open and then hand pollinated. suitable for organic production are selected and grown under Umbellifers are important to Tozer, especially parsnips and contract on certified sites, mainly in Southern Europe where celery. The big breakthrough was when managing director Dr seed can be produced more reliably. Even so, they say there Peter Dawson discovered a male sterile parsnip growing on are many problems producing organic seed - with less vigour the verge of the A3 at Wisley. Tozers were subsequently able and poorer germination. They did express interest in working to create the world’s first hybrid parsnip - Gladiator, released with the OGA in the future and if anyone is interested in in 1982. A male sterile plant has no anthers and does not hosting trials then get in touch with them. produce pollen, the style will develop normally later and all seed set will be hybrid. The successful hybrid celery Victoria Caliente mustard was released in 1991. Plant Solutions, a division of Tozer Seeds Ltd, have been It takes 7-10 years to produce a new variety of lettuce. In championing the benefits of Caliente mustard for green manure contrast it can take 7-10 days for a new strain of downy mildew and biofumigation use for a few years. Rebecca Dawson gave to develop. If there is a big area of a single variety there is huge a talk on the role it can play in organic production systems. pressure on the downy mildew fungus to change. If several Caliente Mustard is not a simple green manure crop. It has resistant genes are introduced to the lettuce, the fungus has to been bred and selected to produce high levels of biomass change in more than one way. (green matter) for green manuring, and high levels of the Tozers had been breeding leeks since the 1970’s and the male naturally occurring compounds, primarily isothiocyanate sterile character that makes hybrid production possible had (ITC) released from brassica plant tissues, required for biofumigation. Potato growers in Washington State in the USA have been working with mustards commercially for the last 12 years to improve their soil and reduce pest and disease. Many varieties have been tested and developed by the ISCI institute and Cereal Toscana in Italy, and by High Performance Seeds and several universities in the USA.

One mechanism whereby Caliente works to suppress disease is competitive exclusion. Green manure serves as an energy source to the micro-organisms within the soil. Pathogens normally require host plants to grow and replicate. Beneficial micro-organisms multiply and out compete pathogens Lettuce lines in a greenhouse at Tozer Seeds. for position within the rhizosphere e.g. in suppression of

Page 14 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Verticilium wilt. A successful crop can grow to 7ft tall and incorporation before planting the next crop and ideally a cress produce 100tons/ha freshweight green matter. This will out- germination test performed prior to planting. The best weed compete weeds. and disease suppression is seen in crops planted immediately after the two week fumigation period. Glucosinolates are compounds found in all brassica plants to a greater or lesser degree.

Caliente brand mustards have been developed to contain very Behind the scenes high levels of the correct glucosinolates. Glucosinolates and After an enjoyable lunch we had a guided tour of the Myrosinase, an enzyme, are found in separate areas of the greenhouses, trials grounds and seed production facilities at plant cell; only when the plant cell is macerated do the two Pyports. The greenhouses were full of lettuces, which after combine, in the presence of water, to form the fumigant gas pollination in the field are dug up and transferred to the Isothiocyanate (ITC). greenhouse to grow on and ripen the seed in the dry. The sight The benefits claimed are the suppression of various soil of celery in full flower was also something to behold. Tozer diseases including Verticilium dahliae, Rhizoctonia spp., has over 80 employees and the peak of labour is at Easter Pythium spp., Fusarium spp., and Sclerotinia spp. It can when the brassica hybrids need pollinating. The pressing jobs suppress a range of nematode species and may deter at the time of visit were pollinating the runner beans and the wireworm populations. Caliente brand mustard will suppress squashes. As David Coles from Defra Link disappeared to look a number of annual weeds following incorporation. It may not at the Caliente crop, which we were told was too young to be provide 100% weed reduction, however, especially on hard of much interest, the rain started to fall and we retreated to seeded perennial weeds. As with other green manures it can the seed warehouses. Seed comes in from across Europe and increase organic matter, which will improve soil structure, beyond. Much of it needs cleaning prior to storing/packing increase water and air capacity of the soil and provide better and a variety of equipment is used. Coriander cleaning was in workability. progress when we visited.

It can be grown all year round and can be sown in spring/ All in all, it was a fascinating day and a big thankyou to summer & autumn in U.K. wherever a production slot occurs. Rebecca, Frances and all at Tozer Seeds for making us so It can be over-wintered from an early-mid September sowing, welcome. though some frost damage may occur if temperatures are very Phil Sumption low for prolonged periods. Incorporate from mid-spring. Seed For more information about Tozer Seeds please look at their website: should be shallow drilled (5-10mmm deep) or broadcast & www.tozerseedsdirect.com rolled into prepared ground or it can be broadcast into stubbles (shallow harrowed) and rolled. The seeding rate depends on the brand as there are different blends for different situations. The downside for organic situations is that Caliente mustard requires certain inputs to ensure maximum green manure and biofumigation capacity. Nitrogen and sulphur may be required (check soil analysis), which could be in the form of FYM or compost, or residual N from a previous crop. Caliente will recycle excess nutrients for the following crop. Organic crops don’t tend to reach the same heights or produce as much material as conventional.

Incorporation methods and timing are crucial. Incorporation must occur immediately after chopping, ideally using a flail mower with hammer blades. In 20 minutes 80% of the ITC gas will be lost. It is important to pulverize to cause maximum cell damage and to have moist soil, irrigating if necessary. Plants can be either in or out of flower. Incorporate to a depth of 6-8 inches (15-20cm) and avoid ploughing. Rolling will seal the surface, trapping the ITC gas. Like all green manures it needs to be treated as a crop in its own right and being a brassica can be subject to the usual problems of flea beetle, turnip saw fly, club root, pigeons etc. Slugs may also be a problem over- winter on heavy land. Two weeks should be allowed post Squash pollination in action

Page 15 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Putting the G into green manures… This was no ordinary setting for an organic open day. No draughty barn or village hall this. We were in the social centre of G’s marketing, at their main site near Ely, a cavernous hall equipped with bar, table tennis tables and Sky Sports on the big screen. Several hours later the building would be heaving with many of the 600, mainly Eastern European, students that G’s accommodate on site, watching one of the Euro 2008 matches and slaking their thirsts with lager and vodka, after a day picking and packing lettuces.

We were not here to watch the football, however, but gathered to listen to a number of presentations on improving Persian promise soil nutrient management through the use of green manures. Despite their recognition of the importance of soil fertility G’s About 40 growers, researchers and advisers attended the day admitted that this year is the first time since conversion that organised by Garden Organic (HDRA) on June 11th 2008. A they had grown fertility-building crops. At the trials field we packed programme of speakers, was a prelude to the main walked over a newly mown stand of red clover to get to the trial event. No, not lunch but a chance to have a glimpse at how plots of red clover, yellow trefoil, sweet clover, Persian clover, one of the biggest players in the organic market operates, not crimson clover and lucerne. As part of a Defra funded project (OF to mention the trials of different green manure types. 0363), this is one of a number of Garden Organic (HDRA) trials across the country evaluating these species in a range of farming In common with many other large companies G’s first systems. This should provide valuable information as to what is turned their hand to organics in 1999. Prior to conversion the best type of green manure to be growing on your farm. This they perceived weeds to be the biggest challenge facing them trial had been sown in September, over-wintered and was now and for this reason converted their mineral land. They found, due to be topped. On a peat fen soil, with an extremely high weed however that fertility was more of a problem than weeds burden, rapid competitive growth is of utmost importance for and for this reason later converted their more fertile black establishing a good fertility-building ley. Of the species trialled, land. Organics now comprises about 10% of their business Persian clover was so far looking the most promising, producing and they have around 400 ha (988 ac) of organic land in four large amounts of biomass that had rapidly smothered any weed areas within a 30-mile radius of the pack-house. With 230 ha growth. The red clover was perhaps the second best at this stage of salad crops, mainly lettuce, they reckon they supply about but had produced less biomass than the Persian clover. Other 35% of the organic salads market. Bulb onions are also grown species were showing more competition from weeds, but things on 130 ha of rented organic land in Norfolk and Suffolk. The should hopefully improve after the topping. A test crop will be organic crops are harvested and finished in the same way grown at the site in 2009 to assess which green manures have had as their conventional crops, which means in the field using the most beneficial effect on soil fertility. large packing rigs. Once the harvested crop gets to the pack- house it is only handled by forklift trucks and is cooled in the 32 pallet capacity vacuum cooler to 3/5°C within 30 minutes of arrival. This facility is operated 24/7 during the Clover breeding season, which lasts from May to October before the harvest Earlier in the day, Heather McCalman of the Institute of Biological, moves to Spain. Any waste is composted or fed to their own Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth outlined cattle. Aphids are their biggest problem for organic lettuce some key aspects of their (formerly IGER’s) breeding programme production and when we visited on the 11th June, they were for red and white clover. White clover has been primarily bred for about to cover with meshes. persistence and winter hardiness. Unlike red clover, white clover has a stolon structure and it is the maintenance of this which is an important factor determining its persistence. Varieties have a range of leaf sizes with the smaller leaved varieties (eg AberAce and AberCrest) fairing better under a grazing regime whereas

Page 16 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 the larger leaved varieties (eg Crusader, Chieftain) are more over the whole rotation not just for one crop, although they can be suitable for cutting. Some varieties (eg Aberdai) are flexible and expressed on an annual basis. Although nutrient budgeting can be can produce good yields under either regime. Red clover is now a useful tool for making comparisons, the final numerical answers being bred for increased persistence, pest and disease tolerance should not be interpreted too literally as there is often a good deal of (especially stem nematode and sclerotinia) and grazing tolerance. uncertainty. There is also the danger that factors which have a large As it grows from a single crown, the maintenance of this crown effect are often ignored e.g. whether the unmarketable fraction of a is particularly important for persistence. Varieties such as Milvus crop is removed from the field or incorporated. show much improved crown persistence over older varieties. Three recently developed models for nutrient management were Although the emphasis of the breeding programme is towards considered: Clive Rahn of Warwick HRI presented the EU rotate clovers for livestock production many of these characteristics model, which was developed as an EU partnership project and should be beneficial in a stockless situation. They are also looking can be freely downloaded at: at genotypic variation in nitrogen leaching and what is being increasingly recognised as being important in low input and http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/whri/research/ organic situations, mycorrhizal associations. nitrogenandenvironment/eurotaten It is a sophisticated model that can simulate N dynamics in a wide range of climates and crops. It is very flexible but this means Cut and mulch? that it requires many parameters to be entered and as such it is Stephen Briggs of Abacus Organic Associates presented some not in a particularly user-friendly form at the moment. Further of the findings from a previous Defra funded project (OF 0316). development is needed before it will be taken up more widely in The actual amount of nitrogen fixed depends on the legume, but the farming community. as a general rule, a well established legume producing a thick Steve Cuttle introduced the FBC model, which was developed canopy is likely to fix much more than a poorly established thin at IGER as part of an earlier Defra funded project. It is a simple crop cover. Much of the nitrogen taken up by the legume is stored model for farmers to use, as it only requires information that they in the below ground fraction, but this is often neglected when are likely to have to hand. However it is less sophisticated than measurements are taken. The cutting regime also has a significant the EU rotate model and has not been validated yet. Initially it effect on nitrogen fixation. Removing the cuttings from the field has been well received by farmers but it needs some further work will stimulate more nitrogen fixation than if they are left to mulch, before it can be released for general use. but this is not always practical - especially on farms without The NDICEA model was developed by the Louis Bolk Institute livestock. Once the green manure crop has been incorporated it is in the Netherlands. It is in the form of a finished product and a important to match the nitrogen released with the uptake of the user-friendly format has been developed. The inputs can either subsequent crop. There is often a mismatch particularly for earlier use standard values already in the model or you can enter your growing crops, where the nitrogen released from incorporating own measurements if you have them. The standard weather data the ley can be released after the main period of uptake from the used by the model is based on various regions of the Netherlands crop. The release of nitrogen from the crop is dependent on many but it is possible to enter your own. factors including the C:N ratio of the residues, soil type, weather conditions and soil organisms but there is still more work to be It can be freely downloaded from http://www.ndicea.nl done before these relationships are understood fully. Garden Organic will be comparing these three models and running further validations as part of the Defra funded project Nutrient budgeting (OF 0363). Phil Sumption and Anton Rosenfeld and computer More information on the presentations from the day are downloadable at modelling www.organicveg.org.uk Not a subject to get growers pulses (no pun intended) racing, it is true, but nutrient budgets and computer models can help growers gain a better understanding of the dynamics of their farming systems. The use of nutrient budgets as a tool for assessing rotations was discussed by Francis Rayns, head of research at Garden Organic. Nutrient budgeting considers the balance of inputs (fixation, deposition and inputs) and outputs (crop removal, leaching, gaseous losses, erosion). These balances should be considered Harvesting and packing lettuce at G’s Photo: Phil Sumption Phil Photo:

Page 17 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Getting to grips with nitrous oxides – Green manures, livestock and the rainforest connection In this article I set out to link greenhouse gases, and in particular nitrous oxides, with land use.

Organic sceptic Professor Bill McKelvey1 has argued that when it comes to management techniques of green manures, to feed increasing world populations there are only two although this knowledge is well established and accessible. options: [note - The Cotswold Seeds catalogue is a good starting point. Growing Green4 has 30 pages on green manuring.] “We either take land from rain forests or we intensify existing farms. We will protect the wild environment by Anything that involves organic matter and soil carries with [intensifying] farms.” it a risk of nitrous oxide loss, even on organically managed soils. As soon as you put together a source of available Acknowledging the laws of thermodynamics and in the nitrogen, available carbon, moisture and warmth in a low- interest of addressing climate change the solution may be oxygen environment then soil microbes will produce nitrous a little more obvious - we eat lower down the food chain oxide. What is important is the relative amounts of emissions from a plant-centred agricultural system based on green rather than just the fact that emissions happen. It’s also very manures. difficult to make quantitative predictions of nitrous oxide I was hoping for the first real debate about feeding Britain loss - it depends on the weather, the amount and quality of and tackling climate change at the recent Zero Carbon Britain green material and on management practice (e.g. mulching, conference, but in the workshop I attended the first part of if it creates low oxygen zones, may be harmful). the discussion was dominated by sheep for the uplands. In field trials in North East Scotland cultivated bare soil While it is true that sheep tend to eat fewer grains than other emitted marginally more nitrous oxide than an incorporated livestock all feed grains displace human food supply. It is a overwinter green manure, the incorporation having comfortable notion that livestock only eat from permanent immobilised some of the nitrogen5. This is in direct contrast pasture and that this is often marginal land not suitable for to the Frank Woet’s experiment where the opposite was arable crops. This is not the case (think of pigs and poultry). found and green manures performed worse than compost. For upland use the challenge is to move from culturally- I believe the difference is the warm, wet soil conditions embedded systems to sustainable production of timber, brought about in Woet’s incubator. Carbon oxidisation is willow coppice and arable/horticultural crops - if the land known to accelerate at 25° C and the bioassays were kept at can sustain the latter. this temperature. Additionally in the compost the bulk of the The role of green manures was not properly discussed at carbon (up to 60%) had already been lost to air during the the conference since their incorporation was believed to be composting process, so a correspondingly smaller quantity a significant source of nitrous oxide (N²O). Nitrous oxide of easily-oxidised (labile) carbon remained to be turned into is of prime importance. Per unit of weight it has 310 times the soil. more impact on global warming than carbon dioxide2. The Green manures provide a source of labile C (as well as N) evidence for nitrous oxide emission from green manure use and their decomposition may produce low oxygen zones comes from a study by Dutch student Frank Woets3. He in the soil. On the other hand, the actively growing crop added amendments of compost and green manures to glass should keep soil nitrate levels low and (provided they are jars of soil that were kept in an incubator at 25C. The green not too N-rich) the C:N ratio of the residues is likely to result manures performed significantly worse when it comes to in an initial immobilisation of whatever nitrate is available nitrous oxide. However this might not be directly applicable in the soil. This should limit the nitrous oxide produced by to field situations encountered by growers and is discussed denitrification. There is also the possibility of nitrous oxide further below. There is certainly a need for better education from nitrification of ammonia from the residues. There are

Page 18 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 probably circumstances where incorporating N-rich residues you visit www.apis.ac.uk and click “nitrous oxide” you can into warm, wet soils does increase nitrous oxide emissions. see a map of Britain and its nitrous oxide hotspots. These are There are also probably situations where incorporation has the warmer, wetter regions - south west Wales, the Welsh little effect - in cool, dry conditions. Even where incorporation borders and Somerset and Devon. It is conceivable that this of green manures increases emissions, these need to be is a self perpetuating problem (the dreaded climate change compared with those arising from other forms of N input, feedback loops) as even the wetter areas further north – north for instance artificial nitrogen. Wales, the north west and the west of Scotland - may become nitrous oxide hotspots as global temperatures rise. After consultation with experts in the field my understanding is that the contribution of nitrous oxide from green manures Table: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) estimate of the in temperate zones is not significant if they are managed main biological sources of nitrous oxide in Great Britain8 carefully. Green manures are extremely important for the economic viability of closed-biological farming systems - preventing soil erosion, improving soil structure, conserving Current Current nitrous oxide N (preventing leaching), potentially solubilising P, creating Source area(million emissions (Kilotons carbon sinks, encouraging earthworms and providing ha) per year - kt y-1) habitats for biodiversity. They should not be discredited on Soils 21.9 91.2 grounds of nitrous oxide. It’s all a matter of trade-offs. Tilled land - - Cereals 3.9 6 The advice for reducing the nitrous oxide potential of green Other crops 1.2 1.7 manures is: Grassland - incorporating in early spring when the cold restricts nitrogen Grazed 3 23.6 mineralisation initially, but sufficient nitrogen becomes Cut 2.9 18.8 available for early crop growth6; Unmanaged 4.6 2.2 • restricting tillage operations to cool and dry conditions; Excretal N from - 29.8 livestock • being aware of possible compaction (unlikely in Semi-natural long-term green manure systems); ensuring that the - - land incorporation allows for aerobic decomposition. This has Deciduous and always been the recommendation of the green manure 1.2 1.6 gurus Iain Tolhurst4 and Eliot Coleman7. Spading mixed woodland Coniferous machines are particularly good at this job; 0.8 0.3 woodland • labile organic compounds (carbon) are short-term and Shrub, heath and are easily oxidised in the soil. It is important to raise the 3.9 1.1 bracken proportion of recalcitrant (long-term) organic matter in Bog 0.4 0.2 the soil. Whilst more commonly practised in Canada Riparian areas 0.09 0.14 chipped branch wood seems the way forward in this Atmospheric respect. It will also help reduce denitrification through decomposition to - 5.8 immobilisation. land

The same principles apply to green manures as to grass The nitrous oxide map overview has been criticised as using leys in rotation and are therefore not specific to stockfree too broad a brush since arable peat soils do not show up as systems. nitrous oxide hotspots but certainly should. Yet the premise 8 According to the Air Pollution Information System (APIS) , remains that grazing can lead to nitrous oxide release. livestock grazing poses a more serious nitrous oxide threat Others have argued these nitrous oxide figures need to be than do conventional arable systems. Nitrous oxide emissions pitted against pre-industrial baseline measurements and can occur without tillage. Nitrous oxide emission takes place consider fossil fuel GHG emissions to be more important. As when an aerobic soil becomes low in oxygen in the presence far as I can see fossil fuel GHG emissions and the livestock of carbon. This is a more likely scenario with livestock food system (to the final consumer) are inseparable. This is grazing because grasslands a) receive larger rates of mineral compounded by the large livestock population. For example fertiliser (often lime), b) occur in high rainfall regions, c) have in the US livestock9 outweigh humans 4 to 1 and it would be manure and urine patches, d) are compacted by hooves. If interesting to know if that figure is similar in Britain. This

Page 19 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 has huge natural resource implications. agriculture, stockfree will be shown to provide tangible benefits that as yet are unexplored. Feeding grains to livestock, and now fuelling our cars with arable crops, is the folly that is putting the pressure on Jenny Hall rainforests. Excluding permanent grassland, the average western meat and dairy eater uses twice the arable land required to feed a vegan10 . Britain imports 40% of its food11 Jenny Hall has been an organic grower since 1998 and has as it cannot currently support its own population from its specialised in working with disadvantaged communities since 2001. arable land and as McKelvey asserts the rainforests are She is an ambassador for stockfree-organic farming techniques and taking the brunt. If all crop land is used for direct human low-carbon food production. She co-wrote Growing Green with consumption then the pressure is released. Iain Tolhurst and is now publishing her own series - “Organic Alice” - aimed at educating primary school children about organic There has been a warm reception for Simon Fairlie’s “Can farming. More info at www.sowandgroworganics.co.uk Britain Feed Itself”12 in The Land no. 4. His article examined the capacity (in terms of number of people fed) of a given . ADAM D (2007) Only intensive farming will feed Britain. area of ground under five different agricultural systems. I Guardian 18.4.07 wrote a point by point response to his analysis of the stockfree 2. Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. system, published in The Land no. 5 (and which I am happy to . WOETS F Disease suppressiveness and N2O emissions email on request). We could feed everyone from 7.2 million of organic waste compost and green manure. Msc. Thesis ha of arable land alone whilst sustaining healthy diets. This Wagenigen University. proportion of arable land would in addition allow better use 4. HALL J & TOLHURST I (2007) Growing Green. Organic of marginal land - 1 million ha for berries, 10 million ha for Techniques for a Sustainable Future. forestry and 3.8 million ha specifically for wildlife including 5. BAGGS EM et al (2000) The fate of nitrogen from incorporated semi-wild grazing. Under a stockfree scenario nitrous oxide cover crop and green manure residues. Nutrient Cycling in emissions are likely to be significantly lower than at present Agroecosystems 56: 153-163 as long as peaty soils are not cultivated. On the CEH figures, 6. BALL BC et al (2007) Nitrous oxide emissions, cereal growth, N which are to be considered illustrative rather than accurate, recovery and soil nitrogen status after ploughing organically it is likely that stockfree scenarios will produce between a managed grass/clover swards Soil Use and Management 23:2 third to a half of present nitrous oxide emissions. These sorts pp 145-155 of GHG savings coupled with carbon and methane reduction 7. COLEMAN, E (1995) New Organic Grower. A Master’s are significant for preventing runaway climate change. Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener. Chelsea Green publishing. To link this to land use, a basic calculation shows that 8. http://www.apis.ac.uk/overview/pollutants/overview_ mixed farming systems cannot both feed likely increases N2O.htm in world populations over the next forty years11 and reduce 9. PIMENTEL D reported in New York Times. nitrous oxide. Afforestation and more climax vegetation is 0. DAVE (2007) How will the world be fed in the future? the solution to reducing nitrous oxides. Agriculture has to Growing Green International 19: 28-29 be viewed as a necessary evil since even the most wildlife- . ADAM D (2007) friendly organic farm has poor biodiversity and increased 2. FAIRLIE S (2007) Can Britain Feed Itself?. The Land, Issue 4. green house emissions in comparison to climax ecosystems. Available at http://transitionculture.org/2007/12/20/can- Regarding nitrous oxides levels, livestock grazed grassland britain-feed-itself and resulting excreta have poorer performance than arable. I would therefore argue that nitrous oxide is a bigger issue than methane with livestock. As for the McKelvey argument “reduce the hectareage of farming or the rainforests get it” - I agree. However, in my scenario greenhouse gas emissions are also reduced and the UK’s forests replanted. Therefore, hectarage shrinkage should not be a matter of intensification, as McKelvey argues, since there are too many GHG/fossil- fuel use/biodiversity implications with nitrogen fertilisers manufactured by the Haber-Bosch process. Instead pressure should come about through only growing crops, and in particular fruit and vegetables, for direct human consumption. This may seem idealistic but as more agricultural thinkers and farmers get their heads around emissions from world

Page 20 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Relay green manures The under sowing of green manures is something that farmers have been doing for some time, mostly using clovers under cereals, but the technique is relatively new to organic growers. I prefer to call it “relay green manures”- the slotting-in of a green crop within the productive cycle of cropping.

There are several advantages to using this technique especially which to apply the technique is important. where the bringing-in of bulky organic manures has become problematical due to lack of availability, cost or potential Reduced tillage in some problems of contamination. situations. Increase in fertility and This is due to reduced weed control techniques in the crop organic matter accumulation. post sowing of RGM, and also to easier tillage in subsequent years where soil structure is improved. Relay green manures (RGM) will, even in a growing crop, be able to add some nitrogen and organic matter to the soil. But Dramatic reductions in its real value comes in ensuring that the soil is covered prior nutrient leaching over the to the winter period when so many nutrients will be lost from the soil due to leaching. The greatest loss of nutrient is due winter period. to leaching, not to crop off-take. Horticulture makes heavy demands on the soil and it is pointless building fertility and Reduction in pest attack. then allowing it all to wash away during the winter. Far better Increased bio-diversity is a good way to reduce pest problems, to allow for modest and achievable inputs by ensuring that due to the increase in beneficial insects that will occupy the what you put in stays put. Deep rooting green manure will plants grown within the RGM The effect of this tends to be also help to recycle nutrients that may have been lost to lower cumulative, increasing yearly as the system stabilises. Some soil levels during previous cropping. Most RGMs will benefit insect pests may be discouraged or confused by a green cover the following crop far more than their host crop. between rows of crops. Improved soil structure. As with all good things in life there are some disadvantages to be considered too: - Keeping the ground covered will aid the preservation and improvement of its structure. Some green manures will root High degree of management very deeply in a short period. The resultant root structure will required. do much to improve soil profiles. The incorporation of RGM will mean that timeliness is very Improved earthworm and soil important. There will usually be a very narrow window of fauna populations. opportunity for pre-sowing weed control and the subsequent sowing of the green manure. Earthworms just love to have a cover over their heads, happily munching away at plant debris and decaying green manure. Soil fauna multiply faster when soil is covered, helping to process the organic material into available nutrients and then binding them to the soil.

Weed control.

Good control of weeds is very much dependent on pre- RGM tillage, as well as the suitability of the whole rotation. Providing that cultivations have been well carried out then an improvement in reduced weed populations will be experienced. Timely establishment of the RGM is essential to smother any potential weeds and choosing the right crop in Red clover emerging under squash 21/7/08

Page 21 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Slug problems. . For white clover use strong growing varieties. 2. Can be left in over winter, good for shade tolerance. In an ideal world the increased bio-diversity will mean higher . Use higher rate for late sowings under leeks. Excellent beetle and other predator populations to control the slugs. for weed control in following spring. Unfortunately this may not always be the case. If you have 4. Be sure to use winter hardy cereals. a slug problem choose your crops carefully. I have found 5. Needs high pH and well drained soil. Excellent for 2-3 that once the system of almost continuous green manures years after crop. is established the slug population does decline to generally As a general rule clovers, trefoils and lucerne can be sown acceptable levels. at around 1-2 g/m² for small area crops. The best method is a handmade sower made from a jam jar with several small Weed problems. holes drilled in the lid and used like a salt shaker. You will If you get the timing of cultivations and sowing wrong you need to experiment to get the seed rate right, perhaps blocking can get in a mess! In some parts of the country on some soil some holes with tape. For field scale use a seed fiddle, shanty types you may need irrigation to get seed established. In barrow or the Earthway broadcaster which takes 20 kg of seed wetter areas it may not always be possible to generate a stale and will sow around 2ha in ½ hour of walking seed-bed prior to sowing RGM, or you may miss the window Other suitable crops for under-sowing are runner beans with of opportunity for sowing the RGM red clover sown when the beans are ½ m tall. Courgettes with red clover when 6-8 leaves have developed . Tomatoes and Crop competition cucumbers in glasshouses are easy to do use Kent Wild White clover or trefoil when plants are 0.5 m tall. I have not found low- With some crops the RGM may compete for nutrient and growing crops such as lettuce suitable for RGM techniques. moisture to the detriment of the main crop. It may be acceptable to allow a yield reduction with some crops in order Techniques for establishing the RGM will vary depending on to build adequate fertility for future cropping. crop and soil type but generally seed will be broadcast into the established crop and either lightly cultivated in or irrigated. Machinery/labour For small producers sowing the seed and covering it by hoeing-in has the additional benefit of weed control. You may need additional items of machinery to establish and subsequently manage the green manures. In some cases Several stale seedbed passes should have been carried out additional labour may be required. within the growing crop prior to seed sowing. Once established there is nothing more to be done to the crop apart from possibly You will need to redesign your rotation if you are going to be rogueing for perennials such as docks. Where row crops are able to make the best use of the technique. Ideally you will be grown on ridges or on raised beds inter row cultivations are able to include a green manure crop in just about every year needed to ensure freedom of weeds prior to sowing the RGM. of the rotation Timing of sowing is critical - too early and the vegetable crop Table of green manures for under sowing techniques could become swamped by the green manure, too late and the

Green Sowing green manure may not establish effectively. As a general rule Suitable crops Dates manure rate/ha vegetables need to be at the point of vigorous growth so that the green manure and crop can grow at the same rate. For example, 7-12kg Red clover Most field crops Apr-E.Sept squash (which is very suitable for RGM) needs to be just about

to start throwing out its laterals, then the green manure will be White Most field crops 6-10kg Apr-E. just behind the crop. In this case the window of opportunity is clover Sept only about one week, and so the operation is rather weather Kent W. Tom, Cues, Aub, 1-2gm/sq dependant, whereas sweet corn can be sown at any stage from White Feb-Sept C.F.beans m about 15cm to 0.5 m. tall, still achieving good green manure cover Clover without crop detriment. Brassicas have been problematical due Late Aut. sowings Cereal Rye 120-250 kg Sept-Nov to lack of precision equipment for sowing. Broadcasting is not field veg very effective as the crop tends to get too large over the green As above Oats. 120-250 kg Sept-Nov manure. I have also had problems with seed falling into the

hearts and growing out of the centre of the cabbage! Sweet corn/ 12 kg Lucerne April-July maize Give it a try with an easy crop first such as squash or courgettes and gradually move on to other crops. The higher rate should be used in difficult situations such as late sowing or advanced crop stage. Iain Tolhurst

Page 22 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Fruit, Veg – and Trees As the potential disasters loom from the interaction of decreasing fossil energy and increasing climate change, the clearer it becomes (at least to me) that agroforestry is the one really practical way out. But what is agroforestry?

Essentially, rather than managing trees, annual crops and layout is a 3m wide strip or line of trees, all orientated north- animals separately, in different areas, they are managed south and planted at low density (ca. 100 per ha), so as to together on the same space, to benefit from positive minimise shading of the 12m cropping alleys that lie between interactions among them. A wider definition (and much other the tree lines. useful information) is available at http://www.montpellier. inra.fr/safe/english/index.htm , the website of the French/ International SAFE (Silvoarable Agroforestry For Europe) Our three classes of alley project. Also go to Google Images Search and request cropping system are: ‘Agroforestry’ – this gives a wide range of fascinating pictures . Hardwoods: seven hardwood species in randomised and their relevant background. Most of what you see is non- groups (ash, hornbeam, Italian alder, oak, small-leaved organic. Our organic systems at Wakelyns Agroforestry lime, sycamore, wild cherry). A second area includes are not on there (yet) so here I summarise some of our own apple dispersed among the other seven to delay pest systems and experiences. and disease spread among the apples (it works), 2. Fruit and nut: one system has walnut and plum varieties Agroforestry systems interspersed in lines with 18m alleys. The second has a wide range of topfruit with some fruit bushes in the The broad range of systems fall roughly into: under-storey, separated by 12m alleys, . Border systems: these include field hedges (the oldest . Coppice systems: one with a mixture of willow varieties agroforestry system in northern Europe), living fences, and species (alternate rows harvested each year) and field and property boundaries, and hill terraces and one with a population of hazel, harvested over a nine- contours. year cycle. 2. Water management: riparian (stream or river edge) belts, erosion control on hillsides and other flood mitigation What are the trees doing systems . Alley cropping: narrow tree rows separated by broader for us? cropping alleys, which can also be integrated with They obviously provide shelter and shade – but this cannot livestock management be allowed to progress too far since it will then affect the 4. Forest or Woodland Gardens: for the smaller scale, see productivity of the alley crops. Managing the shade is all part Figure 1. of the tree harvest, which is not only timber, fruit and nuts. At Wakelyns Agroforestry, we have developed several alley Among the prunings, larger boughs are used for firewood or cropping systems, each on about 2ha so that we can look at other purposes, with the rest left in situ to return fertility. Leaf their potential and their advantages/disadvantages. The basic fall is also part of the harvest – nutrients brought up by the tree roots to help form the leaves are wind-blown across the cropping alleys as a ‘free’ leaf mould. Implicit in this complex harvest is long-term carbon sequestration, most of which occurs underground. There is no doubt that sequestration from these actively growing trees is enormous and a key advantage of these systems in helping to limit climate change. Sequestration is improved, of course, where the timber is used for making objects or for building.

The overall diversity of output from the rotationally-cropped alleys and the trees reduces the impact of annual crop failures Just mowed clover ley between poplar/alder on left and mixed – it takes a seriously bad year for the whole system to fail. Such ‘hedgerow’ on right (2008) built-in environmental resilience helps in land use efficiency

Page 23 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 and market diversity, ensuring job security. Bulletin No. 94, August, 2008. So at least one complex food web is in place, all the way from the soil to one of our less One particular output, from the willow and hazel, is wood common and endangered, but extraordinary, birds. chips. Following a late winter harvest by tractor-mounted saw, the willow and hazel stems are heaped in the field to dry out And, of course, it is still possible to grow currant bushes, over the summer. They are then chipped, using a modified gooseberries etc. in that rough, woodland understorey. We precision-chop forage harvester and the chips transferred to are not doing that intensively, but it is certainly clear that the a large hopper in the barn. From the hopper, the chips are bushes we do have, and their fruit, are healthy. augered, on demand, into a newly-installed Gilles (Austrian) As for the alley cropping – we just continued with the organic boiler to run the central heating and hot water supply in rotation. Provided the shade aspect is managed, there is little the house. This gives us an (almost) closed-cycle renewable difficulty in continuing as normal. Probably the only factors energy heating system, based on a crop that has already to bear in mind are that productivity can be slightly reduced sequestered carbon, provided shade and shelter, increased over a short distance from the tree lines, more so on the west the local biodiversity (breeding willow warblers, various than the east. mammals, large numbers of insects etc.), provided material for local craftspeople and leaf fall nutrition for the alley crops, before it goes into the fuel cycle. And all from a remarkably small area of tree lines (approx. 12-15t/ha dry woodfuel). What are the Two incentives for working on the trees are to improve one’s disadvantages? pension – less easily done with a conventional pension - and There is no doubt that management of such systems is more to make the whole system look increasingly attractive as a complex, though better distributed around the year and, three dimensional landscape. arguably, more interesting and satisfying. There may also Although there may be competition for water between trees be reduced cultivation opportunities because the trees ‘get and crop in times of shortage (a minor problem over the last in the way’ and narrow alleys force machinery into a single 14 years even in Suffolk), which tends to occur on the west direction. rather than the east side of the tree lines, water use efficiency Probably the main disadvantage, however, is the extra cost is improved by the presence of the trees. This happens, for of management, because the wide-ranging benefits of the example by soil improvement allowing better water absorption systems are not yet fully recognised for stewardship schemes. in the tree lines and by the trees creating ‘rain’ by capturing Arguably, this will be recovered, at least in part, by the overall mist. And, of course, trees are essential for water cycling. increase in productivity. But the contribution to improved biodiversity should also be recognised. The tree In this sense, we believe that the total area of an agroforestry parcel should be eligible for the Single Payment Scheme, understorey which it isn’t, yet. However, the current draft EU-RDR for 2008-2013 includes a welcome and innovative Article 41 that Part of the organicness of the systems is the understorey. introduces support for the establishment of new agroforestry Initially, the understorey appeared to be developing into a systems. This has been applied already by Greece and Ireland dreadful reservoir of arable weeds. I tried various systems for their farmers. Through Stephen Briggs, we have also been of mowing (even burning on one disastrous occasion) until pressing Defra to accept alley cropping systems for the SPS in indecision finally led to inactivity, which was exactly what was needed. We just had to wait until the tussocky grasses and other woodland species took over and helped change the tree understorey into ‘woodland edge’. And woodland edge is where there is a maximum of biological activity.

Arguably, it is this aspect which is one of the main differences between organic and non-organic agroforestry systems, encouraging a greater range and numbers of insects, mites and other species associated with the trees. For example, one of our larger species is the field vole. This encouraged barn owl predation (their staple food is voles) and barn owl breeding on the farm (with help from the Suffolk Community Barn Owl Hazel lines, 2008. The pair on the right were coppiced in Feb 2008 Project: www.scbop.org.uk). More detail on this is in the ORC Photos: Martin Wolfe Martin Photos:

Page 24 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 this country.

But we believe that the disadvantages are hugely outweighed by the advantages, which gives the feeling of a fundamental contribution to addressing the current environmental problems. At a more personal level, the peace and satisfaction of working in a three-dimensional green landscape has to be experienced. Try it and see! • Quality organic seed for professional growers. Smaller scale • Field vegetables and salad crops. systems • Independent UK seedhouse In this country, smaller scale systems were inspired by Robert Hart’s Forest Garden approach (see drawing reproduced by • For details of our range of seeds courtesy Graham Burnett), which is self-explanatory. Ken see our website www.elsoms. Fern adopted the term ‘Woodland Gardening’ and listed a com and see our new organic range of suitable shade-loving plants. Martin Crawford’s Agroforestry Research Trust is another important example, catalogue. Please contact us if and an excellent source of information and material for these you require a hard copy. and larger systems.

Spalding, Lincolnshire. PE11 1QG Telephone 01775 715000 Fax 01775 715001 www.elsoms.com e-mail [email protected]

How to set up an appropriate system depends on the locality, both from the physical point-of-view, and, of course, what is likely to be saleable. Otherwise, the only limit is one’s imagination, provided the question of potential shading over a long period is considered. Given that most of the usual species and varieties of vegetables are perfectly happy in the alleys, with the sun lovers kept more to the alley centres, veg returns should be similar to normal expectations for the area. But the potential extras in terms of fruit, nuts, fuelwood and timber, are something to look forward to.

Martin Wolfe

Professor Martin Wolfe is Research Director for the Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm (since 1997). After a long career at the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge, he held the Chair of Plant Pathology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, for nine years. He now farms Wakelyns Agroforestry in Suffolk, which is the main site for ORC arable farming research. The background for the field trials is six organic agroforestry systems, developed continuously since 1994.

Page 25 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The best laid plans… I am sat down in the living room of our static caravan, after returning home from our field following a gruelling day of picking (seven hours), packing (two hours), and weeding (five hours). This scene may be familiar to many of you, not just the work level in July, but also the return to the modest yet comfortable accommodation afforded Upwardly immobile My partner and I are now in our third year as organic vegetable and fruit producers on a fifteen-acre holding in Dorset. Both having worked in the sector for a number of years we were well aware of the workload and nature of the tasks associated with vegetable production, and realised that accommodation on site was essential. We don’t have a spare income of £9,600 per annum to rent accommodation close to our field, and to service a mortgage on a £300,000 house would be impossible. We met our accommodation needs by purchasing a static caravan. Once procured we then located it in the most sensitive way we could, tucked in a corner of a large industrial farmyard, screened almost on all sides, only visible from the farm yard or the air. All this was undertaken with full permission and support of our landlord.

With planning permission already in place for our polytunnels, we set about applying for retrospective planning permission on our caravan. This is when our problems with our local district council planning authority started. Planning permission was refused on the alleged Dan, Nat and baby Sam grounds of there being no functional need for either one or both of us to dwell on site. The nature of our work and the location of the holding would have made the day-to- in a planning application, employ and pay an agricultural day working of our enterprise impossible if we couldn’t live consultant and pay for and mount an enforcement appeal. on site, so we decided to stay put and appeal the council’s The appeal process involved producing a statement of case decision. compiling proofs of evidence, mustering letters of support, getting advice from professionals paying barrister’s expenses and attending the appeal. The professional help we received An appealing was from the Environmental Law Foundation, who also instructed a barrister on our behalf for the appeal hearing. proposition The Environmental Law Foundation gave their services for free, however the rest of the process was costly and took up To mount a planning appeal without money to burn is a tricky an immense amount of our spare time. issue. You have to be willing to become an amateur expert. Fortunately we found a great number of people who were in Our case was fought mainly on the ground of functional need. the same situation as us or had come through the other side, We set out, successfully, to prove that there was a functional and their advice and practical help was invaluable. need for there to be a constant on-site attendance to deal with potential emergencies and to carry out the day-to-day We also realised that we had to be prepared for the long functioning of a horticultural small holding. On May 9th this haul. The process took, from start to finish, about ten year we received notification from the planning inspectorate months. During these ten months we had to pay for and put that our appeal was successful, and we were granted three

Page 26 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 year’s temporary planning approval. becoming increasingly important. The national and local planning guidelines seem to encourage the growth of the local The crux of the matter is the difference between the guidelines food sector, and the development of “niche” markets such as and their application by our local authority. Planning organics. In our case and many others the planners seem guidance is fully supportive of legitimate agricultural unable to grasp the nature of small-scale organic vegetable applications, and rightly weighted towards those intending to and fruit production. To be a successful grower you need achieve a goal of long-term sustainability. Where the process to put in a very high workload. Constant monitoring of fell down in our case was with the local authority. There is crops, pests, polytunnels and transplants, combined with much in recent planning law aimed at reducing the impact long working hours means that on site accommodation is of new developments along with a reduction of private car not a lifestyle choice but an essential need. This combined use. To counter our case our local authority used a report with the current state of rural housing, much of it being far produced by a consultancy whose area of expertise was not beyond the affordability of someone on or below minimum based in the organic sector. The robustness of their report wage, means that the dream of the government to increase was seriously undermined by their lack of understanding the availability and production of local food is likely to of mixed organic fruit and vegetable production, and their remain a dream. In our experience the local planners, in a lack of understanding of the goals of an enterprise such as rural county, showed no understanding of the nature of our ours. Our local council failed to understand the issues that enterprise and the goals of sustainability that we are trying make our enterprise and others like it, although not perfect, to achieve, and were obstructive throughout the whole a definite step on the way to a more sustainable future. We process. based our case entirely on planning legislation, and showed, by applying their criteria, that enterprises like ours are The knowledge and understanding that we have gained dependant on appropriate, affordable and convenient rural through the process of mounting a planning appeal, accommodation. combined with a substantial and growing network of willing advisors and professionals, has put us in a position where we are able and keen to assist any other members of the Barriers to growth OGA with a legitimate planning issue. We can offer advice and act as a liaison between growers and the various bodies Growers (like all British food producers) are becoming a rare and individuals who helped us in our case. If you think breed. As a thirty-five year old it came as quite a shock our experience could be of any help to you, or someone to me that I am considered a “young farmer”. The average wanting to start up as growers then please email us at age of a farmer is currently 58, and doesn’t seem likely to [email protected] drop in the foreseeable future. There are so many barriers in the way of a younger generation of growers coming into Dan Newberry the sector. Some are fortunate to have come from farming families, and are able to live in existing accommodation. For those of us coming from a non-farming background the issue of appropriate and affordable housing on top of the costs of setting up a business is considerable. The struggle we had with our local planning authority is by no means unique. We know of two other organic holdings in Dorset that have succeeded in overturning a planning decision made against their dwellings.

In the current climate of environmental awareness and increasing oil prices, the The mobile home

way we produce our food is Newberry Dan Photo:

Page 27 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Two Years in Indonesia It was April 2004. Two months ago, I’d slipped the surly bonds of my role as an account manager of a horticultural company supplying Tesco (I’d had enough of pandering to their whims and their truculent phone calls), and found myself on a plane heading east to Indonesia for a two-year project with VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas). After ten weeks of language training learning Bahasa Indonesian in Bali, I was now being dropped in the cultural heart of Java, the city of Yogyakarta, to sink or swim with an organic farmer’s co-operative called Sahani.

synthetic fertilisers. Many of them had found after years Sahani of using the artificial inputs that their land had started to Sahani (short for ‘Sahabat Niaga Petani’ or ‘Farmers who are lack vitality, and had also found that by employing organic Friends of Trade’ in its rather verbose English translation) methods their yields recovered quickly to almost equal those was an Oxfam-funded project set up to provide better access of the conventional farmers. They also intercropped fish in to markets for small-scale organic rice farmers in central their paddy fields which they claimed was impossible with Java. I had been seconded to help in developing better conventional farming due to the conflict between artificial management systems, a marketing strategy and better quality inputs and the survival of the fish. Most of the farmers used control. Sahani consisted of about eight farmers’ groups, traditional varieties which were prized locally for their taste most of whom supplied the co-operative’s outlet in the city as well as being better adapted to the local conditions out of of Yogyakarta which in turn sold about three tonnes of rice which they had originated. a month to 100 local customers, local supermarkets and a couple of wholesalers in Jakarta (the capital). The aim was to return a higher price to the farmers for their organic rice than Challenges and what they would receive if they sold it on the open market. This they succeeded in doing, and the farmers were on the Working whole quite happy with this. Unfortunately though, Sahani was groaning (like many The farmers in the co-operative were poor (average farm development projects) under molly coddling from Oxfam. size 0.1ha) but they were also bright. They had stepped After eight years of funding they were still far from being outside the norm of the government run ‘Green Revolution’ in a position to stand independently as a business without and had rejected the high yielding varieties, pesticides and funding. This was due in part to a farmers board that was riven with politics, minor corruption and conflicts of interests. The situation was compounded by poor strategic planning by Oxfam themselves in just continuing to fund from year to year rather than actually having any exit strategy at all.

I was based at the rather tiny outlet on the main thoroughfare running out of Yogyakarta, breathing in diesel smoke and perspiring heavily in the equatorial heat and humidity. Here I worked with the manager and the staff to look at ways of improving quality (stock rotation, quality intake checks etc) and had participatory meetings (with lots of post-its, marker pens and flip chart paper flying about the place) with some of the Farmers Board to come up with a farmer-led marketing plan. It sounds quite simple, but in Indonesia the sheer amount of logistics and luck that has to coincide to get everyone in one place at once to have a meeting meant that many times Patrick and colleague inspecting beans meetings didn’t quite take place. Everywhere in Indonesia the

Page 28 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 pace of life was slow and delays at work and in life in general non-organic farmers with no windbreaks in between (if you were not unusual. The concept of time was aptly described by allowed a 10m buffer either side there wouldn’t be any space the local term ’jam karet’ which literally meant rubber time. to work in!) and with common sources of irrigation water However, I soon realized that this slowness was not a sign of having the potential for small amounts of contamination. lethargy – just a different and less stressful way of working In the end the markets in far-away cities may grind to a halt than our crazy UK work culture. So I tried to work with rather due to problems with certification. The farmers will probably than against it. return to selling locally. They will still sell organic rice but Thankfully I had a little 100cc Honda motorbike provided so without the back-up of certification, relying on the trust I could escape the office and visit the field often. I spent many garnered by knowing their customers well. It’s a reality that days out of the city in the incredible fecundity of the Javanese Sahani can still work within. volcano-pocked countryside visiting farmers - drinking sweet tea, eating Nasi Goreng, talking in the shade of the palm trees in a haze of clove cigarette smoke, and occasionally working Leaving by helping them spread compost or do some weeding. All this Despite the difficulties, I left in April 2006 with some relative inactivity was actually the only way to go – only by satisfaction that we had all worked together at Sahani to slowly talking through what they did could we start looking improve the general situation. The co-operative was now at the ways we could improve the processing of the rice in selling five tonnes a month and this was now just enough to order to keep the quality high. Simple things like using mats be sustainable if Oxfam pulled out of funding us (which they on which to dry the rice rather than on the road, so keeping did a month later). A coup d’etat had been effective in getting stones out the rice. Another farmer developed a device that rid of some malign influences within the farmers board and blew the dust out the rice using a small household fan. Simple, the staff in the outlet were now more motivated for the future. applicable and effective. It was here in the small things that I left with an experience that had broadened my views, met we started to move forwards. several inspirational organic farmers who I will never forget and also came home with my future wife, Esther (another VSO volunteer)! I hope I also left a small impact on the people Certification I’d worked with during that time, but as with every volunteer who’s worked in a developing country I can safely say I learnt Travails far more than I passed on. At that time there was no certification system of merit in Patrick Lynn Indonesia. Oxfam had been funding a body called BIOCert to set up certification to IFOAM standards to allow affordable On return Patrick Lynn set up Red Earth Organics, based at certification for small-scale farmers. It was a commendable Hockerwood Park, Patrick’s family’s farm near Southwell in action, however it proved very tricky in co-ordinating it on Nottinghamshire. the ground. Managing the paperwork for one farmer can be hard work, as we know, but multiplying that by 40 farmers (sometimes semi-literate) for each farmers’ group and then managing each of the eight farmers’ groups suddenly brought a level of complexity that was completely unmanageable for Sahani. The result was that the poorest farmers are denied the creditably of being certified organic due to complexities caused by them being too small.

The paperwork was one problem, however there were others. There was a good deal of confusion as to what organic actually meant. Over the previous years much commendable work had been done by local NGO’s on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) which had cut out the use of pesticides. Unfortunately Farmer certification training

this had been described as ‘Organic’. However synthetic Lynn Patrick Photos: fertilisers were still in use by these farmers which negated the ‘Organic’ name. The majority of Sahani’s farmers were truly organic, however there were some who still were confused over the use of fertiliser. Beyond this were the physical factors. The farmers worked on plots of land that were right next to

Page 29 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Squash in storage Squash has become a staple crop for us now and occupies a shared rotational block with sweet corn. Its ability to store through until the hungry gap is a major advantage. Storage up until June or even July is quite possible with relatively simple techniques.

Yields are good - an average crop will produce around 4- Squash are happy to be under-sown with green manures [see 6000 squash weighing around 1.5-2.5 kg, totalling about 10-14 article in this journal] otherwise ensure good weed control up tonnes per acre. So you may need quite a lot of space if you to fruiting stage. Beyond that there is no problem with a good want to keep them through until early summer! ground cover of weeds to form a cushion under the crop.

The key points for successful storage are, varieties, sowing and Harvest techniques and timing are critical. The crop needs to planting dates, harvest techniques and storage conditions. be picked from the plant by early/mid October in the south, earlier in the north, if you are to avoid frost damage. Most For long term storage you need varieties that have a tough varieties will tolerate a degree or two of frost once they are skin, mature early and are not too large. Over-size squash are semi-ripe, but don’t risk too much frost as the flesh will be difficult to store due to the space they take up, the ideal size is damaged. Assessing when the crop is ripe or nearly ripe can up to 2.5kg. If you are operating a local box scheme then keep be difficult as varieties differ. As a general rule the skin will to the smaller varieties, although it is perfectly acceptable to be hard to the touch and be full of colour. The leaves will cut larger ones into halves or even smaller. Last year was a be dying-off by this time. Mildew will often attack the crop, real test for squash varieties; ours struggled for most of the by mid September in some years. I see this as a real bonus summer due to excessive rainfall and low light levels. The as it removes the shade effect of the leaves, allowing the sun really big surprise was the butternuts, usually difficult to to continue ripening the skins. If the plants are still growing produce a decent crop in a normal year, they hardly grew strongly by the end of September consider removing most much at all until mid August then they raced away to produce of the leaves. This is difficult to do mechanically without the best out of 9 other varieties. Some failed completely and damaging the fruits, you could try setting a flail or rotary out of 1600 plants we harvested a mere 1600 squash the bulk mower high enough to miss the fruits. being Butternut and Uchiki Kuri. The best varieties for timely maturity are: Uchiki Kuri. Black Futsu. Green Hokkaido, Pick the fruits with great care, fingernails can damage the skin Sweet Dumpling. Waltham Butternut. You may have other and allow infection to enter the fruits, so maybe wear gloves. favourites that work well in your area, but it’s always worth Leave at least 50-75mm of stalk in place - any that have lost trying other varieties and there are plenty to choose from. their stalks will not generally keep for long so use them up early. Place the picked fruit onto upturned potato/harvest Sowing dates are critical and the criteria is the last predictable trays in rows across the field in such a way that you can collect (is there such a thing?) frost date. We are in a frost pocket here later by tractor and trailer. Make sure that you place the fruits and have had frosts as late as June 14th (2004 - minus 5°C!) For so that the bottom that was in contact with the earth and most parts of the country freedom from frost is normal from usually unripe and pale is facing the sun, to ensure complete late May so you need to sow 18 days prior to the frost date. ripening. The length of final ripening will depend on the Ideally sow 2 seeds direct into 7cm pots, or blocks, removing weather, generally two weeks will do it, the past decade has the weakest plant and harden off as soon as you have a pair seen exceptionally good sunshine and light levels late autumn. of true leaves which could be from 7-10 days after sowing. You can usually assume that if butternut varieties have turned Avoid the plants getting too large in the pots/blocks as this buff-brown all over and have lost any green streaks they will will weaken them at planting time. In my experience planting be basically ripe. early June is generally followed by a wicked cold spell with strong winds so hardening off is essential prior to planting. Pick a very dry day, preferably with a drying wind, to load Disregarding this will put the plants under undue stress at very carefully into harvest crates. We use old wooden potato planting-out time. Protection from wind will make a huge chitting trays and remove from field to long term store, treating improvement on yields and early ripening. Try to plant in a them like eggs. Discard any that are damaged in any way or very sheltered position or consider using Jerusalem artichokes have lost the stalk. It is a complete waste of effort and space as a semi permanent windbreak, (or was that breaking wind?). to store any that are less than perfect, do not mix different They also are a great crop for winter harvest. varieties in the same trays. Ideally use shallow trays and place

Page 30 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 the fruits one layer deep only, they can touch each other but be unable to provide this then a small electric fan will blow the careful that the stalk does not damage its neighbour. If you are moisture out of the building. If you have had an early crop using deep trays then you can stack fruits on top of each other and perfect harvest conditions then you may not have to carry but there is then an increased risk of cross-infection if one goes out the final drying operation, but such conditions are rare off. Two layers in most trays will be up to 25Kg in weight and even in the south. as much as you can stack without it becoming a two person Once you are sure that the crop is dry then maintain a job. Crates can go as high as you can reach. If you are a large temperature of around 8-10°C with low humidity, ensuring producer you could use open slat bulk bins and a fork lift but regular ventilation on dry windy days. Check the crop you will have higher losses due to rots. frequently and remove any fruits that are showing rots or Storage buildings must be dry with low humidity and away infections. Infections on skins are a result of handling damage; from direct sunlight. Insulated timber buildings provide ideal infection can also occur at or around the stalk. If ripening, conditions, but ensure that you can open opposite ends of the handling and drying have been thorough then you should store to allow air to pass through. Squash will only store a have little trouble before Xmas, after that you will need to few weeks in damp and humid old stone buildings. If this check weekly, always handling the crop as carefully as you is all you have it is worth considering a thorough insulation can to avoid skin damage. job, or even a new specialist store if you are growing enough With care some varieties will last up to the summer and make to justify the expense. To ensure long-term storage you a big contribution to the hungry gap. If you sell through box need to make sure the crop is really dry and 100% ripe, so scheme you can cut the larger ones into halves if there is a introduce some dry heat for around a week to keep a night damaged part, so not wasting too much. time temperature of around 25-30°C Turn off during the day and give maximum ventilation unless it is particularly damp Iain Tolhurst outside. If your store is well insulated and less than 100 m³ in capacity a 2kw thermostatically controlled blow heater will achieve this temperature at relatively low cost. Natural convection currents are ideal for daytime venting. If you are

Squashes drying in the field at Hardwick in 2006 Photo: Phil Sumption Phil Photo:

Page 31 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Wireworm - in theory and practice Wireworm, for those affected by this most damaging of agricultural pests, have a power to strike dread into the stoutest of hearts. Even now, more than twenty years since they ceased to be a threat to our livelihood, it is easy to summon up the welling despair in the pit of the stomach that comes from knowing that wireworm, in their hidden hundreds of thousands and millions, have undone all that you have sought to do and have reduced all plans and projections to ashes. They could be considered a minority interest. Many growers causes their wing cases to strike the ground with a force that will never see a wireworm, and of those that do most will can raise the beetle several inches into the air, at a speed which be free of them in two or three years. This because they are has been measured at 8 feet (2.5 m.) per second. If the first normally specific to a particular habitat, established grassland, jump does not return them to their feet they repeat the exercise and tend to die out under conditions of cultivation. On the until successful. other hand they do seem to be becoming more prevalent in During May and June each female lays up to 100 eggs, previously unexpected situations – arable rotations and even preferring grassland or ground covered by crops or weeds polytunnels – so some suggestion of possible responses to the but laying on bare soil if that is what’s immediately available. problems they pose may have a broader relevance. They do not appear to travel any distance in search of suitable The basic outline of their lifecycle is plain enough. Beyond sites. The larvae hatch in July and are at this stage transparent that there are uncertainties caused by the long years they white, about a tenth of an inch (2 mm.) long and effectively spend almost entirely invisible to us beneath the soil surface, invisible. As is common to all insects they must moult their the difficulty of replicating these conditions in the laboratory skins in order to increase in size and are reckoned to do this and the wireworm’s refusal to altogether conform to such nine times – generally twice a year and then once in their fifth predictable patterns of behaviour as entomologists have year. After that they pupate as much as a foot (30 cm.) deep in attempted to devise for them. In reality the clearest evidence the soil, the adults emerging in the following spring – that is for their behaviour is the destruction of crops which they five whole years from hatching. cause. There is also the transient nature of the problem – by Feeding is said to take place during two main periods, March the time the grower has picked himself up and begun to get to May and then September and October. The larvae at first eat some handle on it, it’s usually (and thankfully) gone. any vegetable matter, dead or alive, that they can tackle but older ones feed chiefly on living roots and tubers, sometimes burrowing upwards into fleshy stems. As they age they take Lifecycle on their characteristic golden brown colour with darker heads, The wireworm is, generally speaking, the larva of the click eventually growing to 1 in./25 mm long. They bear three beetle or skipjack (family Elateridae) sixty-five species of pairs of legs just behind the head, are slow moving, about which occur in Britain. Some of these are carnivorous, some eat the thickness of a matchstick and remarkably tough – indeed only dead vegetation. Specifically the commonest vegetarian wire-like – so that along with his other problems the vengeful species, those which are responsible for the carnage and which grower can find himself wasting much time on their manual concern us here, are three members of the Agriotes genus. destruction. “Wasting” because however many are destroyed The beetle is up to ½ in. (12 mm.) long, a uniform dark matt in this way no difference of any significance will be made to brown or grey-brown in colour and in shape rather narrow the number of larvae present. with parallel sides. They can be seen on the soil surface and on vegetation between March and July and are notable for their audible jumping ability – hence the vernacular names. When Numbers on their backs, a position adopted as a defence mechanism Growers will be aware of the extraordinary weight of (playing dead), they utilise a tension mechanism between the numbers of soil-living organisms, greater than the stock- first and second segments of the thorax which when activated

Page 32 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 carrying capacity of the surface vegetation, and so shouldn’t 2% of the larvae surviving to pupation. 85% of the population be surprised by the statistics of wireworm populations. All the will be below 2/5th in. (10 mm) in length and these are seldom same the epic proportions of wireworm numbers are chilling. found through simple observation. In the days before chemical treatments, notably gamma-HCH A standard means of assessing numbers ought to be a good and aldrin, enabled the wholesale destruction of the pest foundation for a generally agreed strategy for dealing with the (while simultaneously raising expectations as to the degree of wireworm threat. In reality recommendations for cropping crop damage acceptable) a population of less than1million/ based on wireworm numbers, which all seem to date from acre was considered generally safe for most arable crops. In the 1940s, do show considerable variation. The introduction established grassland, particularly in the Eastern Counties of chemical controls in the 1950s removed the impetus for where they are most prevalent, numbers may reach 8 million/ further research (a familiar story this), though the post-war acre. reduction in the ploughing of old grassland also played its part. The upshot is that when it comes to assessment of crop susceptibilities and control measures the available literature is Counting tentative and sometimes contradictory.

The two world wars of the twentieth century, and the In 1984 we had ADAS sample for wireworm in two fields. ploughing of pasture that these necessitated in order to It was one of the very few services that ADAS then charged increase home food production, elevated the wireworm, for (they had not yet been Thatcherised). Having abandoned which had previously been only of a specific and temporary our acre of potatoes to pigs and harvested 310 lbs of leeks significance, to national prominence. So as to assess the from 50,000 plants (which is to say that all but about 1,500 extent of the problem they posed and in order to be able to had perished), paying £34 each for field counts in our second give recommendations as to what crops might and might spring seemed a sensible precaution. In fact it led to the loss of not succeed, it was first necessary to establish a method of another acre of potatoes, and more pigs. ADAS still undertake counting them in sampled soil cores. A laboratory flotation wireworm counts (at £92 each) but do not often get asked. process capable of finding most of even the smallest larvae was Bait trapping as a means of estimating numbers has also been developed in 1944, hand sorting being too prone to variation practised in the past. Recent research by Dr Bill Parker of in the quality of individual observation to be a reliable guide. ADAS Wolverhampton in conjunction with Bayer CropScience In particular it fails to pick out the smallest forms, which due has looked at ways of refining this method, which is simpler to natural attrition are always the most numerous – only about and less laborious than the one-off count. The traps use cereal Jones, F.G.W. and Jones, M.G.(1964) Pests of Field Crops. Arnold. Crops. Field of Pests M.G.(1964) Jones, and F.G.W. Jones,

Page 33 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 grains and it is the CO 2 given off by the seeds as they respire high levels of grass weed, but this has never been substantiated at germination that attracts the larvae. Beyond that it can be in trials. It is now thought that the aspect of the land is of greater said that if you are not actively looking for them - then not significance – sloping fields carrying higher numbers if they are happening to see a single specimen does not mean that no south facing. wireworm are present. If you are looking for them and find Given the foregoing it is hard to explain why the vegetable field even one or two – then it is safest to assume they are present at Ryton Gardens should suffer increasing wireworm damage en masse. The proof, of course, is in the growing. Perhaps the after six years under cultivation, the 2007 potato harvest being speediest non-arithmetical way of establishing their presence the worst so far with less than 25% of the crop salvaged after would be to plant some module-raised lettuces here and there (admittedly uneconomic) grading. Alarmingly the problem has in the spring, or even to drill them. But bear in mind that if this year appeared in the polytunnels, a third of lettuces dying they survive it may be because you have missed a feeding within a fortnight of planting in early March. There is precedent period. for this, though usually in new protected structures, and steam Here we come back to the uncertainties that are such a feature sterilisation has been used successfully in these situations. It is of wireworm as pest species. In attempting to relate the not just Garden Organic that is affected by the apparent rise general theory of crop susceptibility, and also of wireworm in the local wireworm population, a neighbouring non-organic control, to our own experience three factors prevent any firm arable farmer has now given up growing potatoes altogether. conclusions being given. Firstly – without any definitely Another well-known organic site where wireworm have proved accurate counts being available we cannot tell what relative to be more than a two to three year problem is Hardwick, with wireworm pressure we were under. Secondly – we did not economic damage persisting for five years from conversion of find that the creatures entirely abided by the behaviour laid pasture. Wireworm are still seen twenty years later, though out for them in the technical literature, but could not tell if we never in the walled garden. The soil type may have some were witnessing aberrant behaviour by a few or a wholesale influence – while not a clay soil over chalk the chalk is not far undermining of entomological doctrine by the many. Thirdly away. The intensive use of green manures may also have a – all holdings are different, and some are more different than bearing. others. What might be called “classic” wireworm theory seems to have been largely worked out in eastern England The feeding periods, spring and late summer, given in the where conditions favour them – these would be very different outline of the lifecycle seem to be less well defined in reality. to those of our damp and acidic Westcountry valley. This in If that were not so it would be possible to utilise the periods itself could be sufficient to induce deviations from the norm. of reduced or nil activity to get vulnerable crops established or harvested before severe damage occurred. In practice we had lettuce and other seedlings destroyed in June and July and Length of threat have seen wireworm apparently actively feeding (on carrots) just below the frost level in winter. In most situations wireworm populations are reduced below the level where any damage is seen after three years of cropping, It is sometimes said that reinfestation of new grassland can following the breaking of grassland. This is because only those build up to previous levels in the space of three years, but most above 10 mm. in length are likely to survive the disturbance authorities suggest that a longer time span is required, five of cultivations, and these will all have come to adulthood by years or more. Similarly it might be thought that the proximity late summer in the third year. It is said that damage is often of ground that has been cleared of wireworm to undisturbed worse in the second year, the larvae staying down with the pasture where numbers remain high would lead to rapid decomposing turf during the first summer, but this was not increases. In practice this is seldom the case. In our experience our experience. It has always been recognised that in certain once clear of wireworm, and we saw no damage to speak of situations the problem can be longer lasting. This may be after year two, they did not trouble us again. Half of our land related to soils – populations are notoriously resilient in clays remained in permanent pasture, much of the rest of it has over chalk for instance, but it can also be a result of the crops spent some time under grass between vegetable crops. There grown. A rotation of cereals and short leys which provide are plenty of click beetles about in their season and whenever nutrients while leaving the ground seldom uncovered will tend I dig a hole for a gate or straining post I’m likely to find one to encourage both egg laying and larval survival. Something or more wireworms, but they have never (yet) reappeared in similar might happen where vegetables are grown with a high vegetable crops. Even so, and despite being generally well proportion of green manures, but growers can take heart that disposed towards insects (and the act making no difference), while sainfoin has been shown to increase wireworm numbers I still terminate their existence when I see them – old habits red and white clover, trefoil and lucerne have no such effect. It dying hard. is often thought that wireworm infestations are associated with

Page 34 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 of that summer could have got more of them through it. Crop susceptibility Instead all they had for several weeks were our own salt tears. Potatoes In the second year we grew a smaller number (naturally!) in an adjoining field (by then in its second year after permanent Potatoes occupy a special position in the hierarchy of wireworm pasture) where a count indicated 100,000/acre – a level at damage. They can grow and yield well but the damage to the which most crops are reckoned to have a good chance of tubers is such that you wish they hadn’t grown at all. The success. These all survived. visible hole may be small, but the ramifications inside are extensive. With a count of 25,000/acre (tantamount to there Brassicas being no wireworm present) in a previously unbroken field That field had been sown to swedes in our first summer. Their we were advised that it should be quite safe to grow potatoes failure seemed to be entirely due to the drought. It may be that but that we should inspect the crop for damage in early the midsummer sowing avoided the worst of active wireworm September, and lift then (before the feeding period) if necessary. feeding, but the subsequent low wireworm count suggested Inspection in early August indicated widespread damage and that the initial population was here much less than it was by mid September we’d abandoned the crop, later acquiring on the other side of the hedge. Such unpredictable variation more pigs to deal with it. The ADAS entomologist was good in population density, or activity, is yet another source of enough to say, post this further disaster, that counts are not uncertainty. It is perhaps worth noting that in maturing always accurate. ADAS are now taking an active interest in swedes the damage caused by wireworm is less troublesome, this pest and are well worth contacting for further information being lower in the root, than that caused by cabbage root fly. on it. Their current advice is that there is not necessarily a clear We followed the failed swedes with Hungry Gap kale, sown relationship between wireworm populations and subsequent late July just before a thundery downpour, and this throve crop damage, though higher numbers usually indicate higher mightily with no sign of damage. The high seed rate used for levels of damage, and that even at 25,000/acre between 25% broadcasting may have had a bearing on this, as may the fact and 75% of tubers may be attacked. that the plant is actually a rape rather than a kale. Grading wireworm-damaged potatoes is tedious and soul- We didn’t grow transplanted brassicas until year two and then destroying, and unless damage is very light can never be had little trouble with them, even when planted out on the economic – instead it sucks good money after bad. It also risks ground where our leeks had failed in such spectacular fashion alienating your customers if not carried out with the utmost the previous year. They certainly can be destroyed in the care. Mechanised lifting of the potatoes and use for stock-feed seedbed, but most brassicas are hard to kill once established is perhaps the simplest way out of the predicament, though for and if bold bare-root transplants are used, at 8 to 10 weeks those geared up for them and with land that can sensibly carry from sowing, there ought to be a good chance of survival them over the winter, pigs will certainly clear your worthless in conditions of moderate wireworm infestation. They will potatoes for you. generally withstand root maggot damage at this stage. The Almost all horticultural crops are at risk. What makes them difference here is the passion that rooks have for wireworm, especially so is that plant populations are relatively low and which often pre-empts the destructive power of the latter – the inputs and potential returns per acre are high, while any level of rook pulling the plant up to get at the larvae about its roots. damage may render the harvested crop unmarketable. Spring Thus is an ally in our struggle against the pest also an enemy. wheat and oats are also considered especially susceptible, but Good-sized bare-rooted brassicas, planted deep and firm here the seed rate can be increased to compensate and the (which is what they like in any case) will certainly withstand financial risk is very much less. Particularly susceptible are both bird and larva better than will modules. lettuce, tomatoes, dwarf beans and celery. All small seeded row crops – beets, spinach, turnips, swedes, kale and carrots - may be destroyed at seedling stage and, if they avoid that fate, Resistance? the roots among them rendered unmarketable by tunnelling. A few crops are resistant to wireworm, although still sometimes attacked by them – linseed, flax and mustard. More helpfully Alliums for the grower field peas and field beans are able to survive Onions are said to be highly susceptible. I have seen them despite damage, drawing on reserves in their fleshy seeds and eaten unto death on other sites, though our (second year) stems. They also appear to significantly reduce subsequent experience was that sets would survive with the bulb suffering wireworm numbers. Green peas and broad beans have some only surface damage which lead to moderate grading losses. of this resistance and are worth trying where other crops might Leeks are certainly susceptible but I did feel at the time of fail. One crop that proved to be resistant here was parsnips, our great loss that some moisture to ameliorate the drought though other growers have had contrary experiences. Our

Page 35 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 seedlings survived while fat hen seedlings perished around them, and it was only split and cankered roots that bore any trace of wireworm activity. Control

Three possible means of reducing damage are worth considering – trap cropping, mustard green manures and fallow cultivations. There is probably little or no scope for increasing natural predation. A soil full of wireworm will also be well supplied with other life forms. These are already effective in preventing the rapid population increase that would come about if more than 2% of the larvae (half of them Wireworm damage in leek field

capable of laying 100 eggs each) were to survive. Current Plowright Richard Photo: research is looking at the use of introduced parasitic fungi as itself to extinction and it lives not in the soil but on it, or even a control measure. slightly above it. A more plausible explanation for any effect Trap cropping that mustard might have on wireworm populations, now that we are beginning to recognise such properties, is its potential Trap cropping was developed in relation to the growing of as a biofumigant. The introduction of varieties specifically sugar beet, wheat being drilled between the rows. In some for this purpose, like Caliente, has raised hopes that the cases this alternative food source was enough to allow the beet effectiveness of mustard may be increased. However the seed plants to survive, in others both wheat and beets perished. A suppliers make no claims beyond saying that wireworm may variation was to incorporate rape cake or bran with the seed. be deterred. In 2001 ADAS undertook a field experiment at Broadcasting chat potatoes to attract and hold the larvae Pwllpeiran in mid Wales to test the hypothesis that wireworm is another possibility – but the nuisance value of numerous damage to potato crops can be controlled by the use of random potato plants would surely be great in itself. On the brassica green manures. This was at best inconclusive. Both other hand – if pigs were to be introduced to clear up the the mustard and fodder rape treatments adopted had slightly potatoes, might this not destroy many of the wireworm? lower levels of damage than the control, but the differences Harvesting wireworm damaged potatoes was shown to were not statistically significant. The treatment looked to have remove about 3,000 larvae per ton – enough to destroy any more scope for slug control, the mustard plots showing at unaffected tubers in the store but not enough to make any least a trend for reduced slug damage compared to the rape difference to the field problem. Of course the creatures, once and control plots. sated, leave the tubers to moult elsewhere. Due to their habit When seeking to limit any sort of crop pest it makes sense to of feeding – routing about and heaving the soil in all directions start by looking at its mode of life for signs of weakness that – pigs may well devour or destroy many of the wireworm that might be exploited. This sounds obvious, but the human lack are in the soil as well as those few that remain in the tubers. of empathy with the insect world means that this aspect can Their sensitivity and precision in feeding is such that a trough be overlooked. Wireworm, as all forms of soil life, are at home full of assorted kitchen leavings (bread crusts, tea leaves, in a world that is confined, dark and (especially) moist. The potato peelings et al.) will in short order be scoured clean, with moment soil is disturbed this scene of comfortable wireworm one small nail that happened to find its way into the mix left domesticity is ruptured and, in the case of ploughing, turned markedly alone. This suggests that they may well be capable upside down. of dealing with larvae no more than an inch long. Cultivation Mustard Cultivation has long been accepted as the ultimate means Mustard has long had an anecdotal reputation as a control for of wireworm control. Its drawback is the time and energy wireworm. Lawrence Hills was its greatest exponent, his theory required for it to have effect, as well as the collateral damage to being that preferably two crops of mustard ploughed down beneficial organisms, soil structure and stable nutrient supply. before seeding would provide the larvae with a food supply But when the damage caused by the pest is so devastating a so abundant that they would undergo a rapid transformation long series of cultivations may be not only justifiable but the into adult beetles and go elsewhere. This is unlikely, given the only sensible course of action. Rather than simply preparing nature of insect physiology, and certainly unproven. A parallel ground for cropping in the knowledge that the population belief is that the larvae eat so much that they burst, but it has should shrink and die out over time a more aggressive course to be said that there is only one creature likely to consume of cultivation can actively reduce numbers. The first course

Page 36 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 may reduce the population by 50% after one year and to 30% existent income. The best answer has to be a full fallow and an of its original status in year two. For a vegetable grower this is outside income for that first year. For safety a concentration too slow. Experimental work in Cambridgeshire in the 1940s on legumes, transplanted brassicas (but where are the bare- showed that a bare fallow following ploughing in February root transplants to be raised?) and perhaps parsnips would or March could reduce numbers by 95% in time for winter increase the chances for successful second year cropping. wheat. Desiccation and lack of feeding opportunities are the For those like us who stumble on the problem when the main causes of destruction, while exposure to predation by commitment to first year cropping has already been made, birds may make a small contribution. Ploughing in July with a the first year’s work will at least reduce the population. Short subsequent bastard fallow appeared to affect only the smallest fallows and mustard catch crops in the second year may give forms. some element of control, but even so an outside income during that second year is the safest option. The exact sequence of cultivations employed will depend on the weather, the soil type and the available range of The above advice is hard to accept, but what is most important implements. As an indication of what is possible, but without is that the magnitude of the problem is never underestimated. any suggestion that this is prescriptive, I give an outline of the I am certain that on our holding, already somewhat marginal approach I adopted. On our soil (a retentive silty loam) it has for horticultural use, we have never fully recovered from the been a successful way of preparing grassland for horticultural shock and damage we experienced in those first two years. cropping, but given the uncertainties implicit in all matters Tim Deane pertaining to wireworm I cannot say that it definitely provides an answer to them. With attention to the timing [References available on request.] of the operations it should at least give good weed control. Starting in early spring, as soon as the soil is dry enough, I twice shallow rotavate with fast rotor speed no deeper than is necessary to cut the turf away from its roots. The second pass should be across or skewed to the first, and perhaps a little deeper. I then, again depending on ground conditions, stir the broken turf around on the surface so that it dries out and dies off. For this I use a combination of drag harrows, scuffle (9 tine cultivator) and spring-tines (triple K). According to the weather it may take up to a couple of months before the grass is altogether dead, by which time the decomposing turf is incorporated within the top few inches of the soil where it does most good. So long as this process is extended into June no opportunity is given for egg survival while the frequent disturbance must reduce numbers of existing larvae.

In recognition of the possibility that it may affect wireworm and so as to avoid a summer-long desert of bare ground, I VEGETABLE & FLOWER SEED sow mustard mid-June, and again in August to be followed FREE GARDEN CATALOGUE by over-wintered rye in the autumn. Alternatively, if an early Tuckers Trustworthy Seeds ~ The Value for Money range seedbed is required in the following spring, the second sowing SEED SPECIALISTS FOR OVER 175 YEARS of mustard could be delayed until September and left for the We carry a wide selection of both old favourites & new and exciting winter. All the associated cultivations will tend to further vegetable varieties, including organic and unusual. Last season we reduce wireworm numbers. I no longer plough. It does not had over 128 varieties of potato, (including nearly 50 organic), we also stock Green Manures, Mushroom Kits, Fruit & Gardening products. work well on our ground and I feel that there is a danger of FREE MARKET GROWERS LIST the larvae being turned down deep in the soil where they are FOR LARGER EVEN BETTER VALUE QUANTITIES out of harm’s way and well supplied with food in the form of Available by Mail order: decomposing turf. TEL: 01364 652233 If an organic farmer finds wireworm on breaking grassland WEBSITE: www.tuckers-seeds.co.uk the effect need not be catastrophic so long as he is not entirely EMAIL: [email protected] dependent on arable crops and a rotation can be devised that Brewery Meadow, FAX: 01364 654211 Lords Meadow, does not prolong the problem. Vegetable growers have fewer Stonepark, or Commercial Road Ashburton From our country stores Crediton options, less space in which to pursue them and probably less Devon. TQ13 7DG at Devon . EX17 1ER fat to tide them over the inevitable period of reduced or non- TEL: 01364 652403 TEL: 01363 772202

Page 37 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The Unseen Enemy After working as a nematologist our story is somewhat ironic. For nearly two decades I had advocated soil sampling before planting or sowing to estimate soil populations of nematodes, and thereby predict levels of damage. As growers at the sharp end, such niceties were overlooked when we took on new ground at Stowey Rocks Farm, Somerset, in April 2006. We set about creating our livelihood as growers do each quality of the crop. Of 15 acres of leeks planted by a friend year. We devised a crop plan and rotation based on what we into wireworm infested ground in 2008 only about 2 acres knew of previous cropping and the siting of chicken runs and now survive. “went for it”. We shallow rotavated and ploughed in about 10 acres of old grassland destined for our brassica, allium and umbellifer crops. Potatoes went into a field which we knew had been cultivated for 3 years previously. We had heard of wireworm but had no first hand experience and, of course, for growers hope springs eternal.

The onion story Of 20,000 onion blocks and about 50,000 leeks, bare root and Wireworm damage in leek field module, none survived. All were pulled up by rooks and Plowright Richard Photo: left on the ground. They uproot the plants to feed on the wireworm which accumulate in the root ball or module. In The brassica story many modules we found up to 5 wireworm. We attempted We planted our way across the brassica field and all went well some replanting but the daily rate of attrition was too high and until we started on our winter crops in July (about two acres eventually all were laid waste. The bare root transplants were of purple sprouting, cabbage and cauliflower). the last to go and were very sturdy plants when they too were Just as with the onions and leeks the plants were uprooted as finally up-rooted or snapped off. We noticed an oval shaped the rooks searched for wireworm. Again we replanted and surface wound about 1cm long at the base of the stem of the adopted bird scaring measures (buzz tapes and bangers) to no bare root transplants which we attributed to feeding damage avail. Eventually we covered the area with agroguard mesh, but by wireworm. If the leek were to survive it is possible that the plants beneath were killed by the wireworm damage alone. damage from this superficial feeding could reduce the quality Again we noticed wireworm damage to the base of the stem of the crop. In severe cases whorls of leaves can be stripped which led to wilting and death. We lost all the winter cauli and away at the base of the leek exposing the inner growing purple sprouting in that field. Our earlier plantings of brussels leaves. Sometimes new growth would erupt through the hole sprouts, cabbage and calabrese were OK and we assume that or lesion made by the wireworms. If the leek were to survive the losses in the July plantings were due to a combination of this superficial feeding resultant damage would reduce the wireworm and drought. It did not rain in July 2006.

The carrot and parsnip story Carrots sowed mid to late May established well, but the parsnip stand was a bit thin. We first noticed wireworm damage in the carrots by the end of September. In hindsight we should have sold the whole crop then. We were able to harvest carrots right through until March, with increasing time spent on grading out damaged carrots. By Christmas we were discarding 50% or more of the crop, so we gave up Feeding damage on leeks wholesale and restricted harvest to what we needed for our Photo: Richard Plowright Richard Photo:

Page 38 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 box scheme.

Remarkably there was no wireworm damage to parsnips apart from occasional surface grazing. My untidiness in drilling meant that we had carrots mixed with parsnip in places so a direct comparison could be made. We observed healthy parsnips side by side with severely damaged carrot.

In 2007 buoyed up by the observation of resistance in parsnip Don’t explain what you do. to wireworm we sowed 8 acres of parsnip, half into newly Just tell us what you need. rotavated and ploughed grassland. Parsnip emergence was patchy or non-existent and our investigations revealed wireworm feeding on the young parsnip rootlets. As well as poor overall emergence we observed wilted seedlings where some did come up. The stand of parsnips was too thin to warrant time and money on weeding. ‘From the word go, we Triodos Bank was set up solely to support people were impressed by Triodos who are commited to improving the world we The carrot ground in 2006 was not rotavated before ploughing, Bank’s understanding of share. And because we only work with inspiring instead the grass was mulched. I think that the lower seedling the challenges we faced, enterprises, you’ll fi nd we have the expertise and which was a whole new personal commitment to help you succeed. damage to parsnip that year could have been because the experience for us’. wireworm were ploughed down in the intact turf where Peter Kindersley, To fi nd out more about working with us, call free Sheepdrove Organic Farm on 0500 008 720 or visit www.triodos.co.uk presumably they could feed for a time, allowing the parsnips to establish. TlB

Triodos Bank is a fully licensed bank, authorised by the Dutch Central Bank (dnb) and regulated by the Financial Services Authority (fsa) for the conduct of uk business. Registered Offi ce: Triodos Bank, Brunel The potato story House, 11 The Promenade, Bristol, bs8 3nn. In 2006 and 2007 we lost the majority of our main crop potatoes to wireworm, assisted by blight in both years. In 2006 potatoes were planted into ground that had been in cultivation for 3 years and still wireworm grade-outs were up to 100%. In 2007 potatoes followed a 3 year pure white clover ley, showing that while clovers do not encourage wireworm they don’t discourage them either.

Conclusion TOP QUALITY SOFT FRUIT PLANTS In describing our wireworm experiences (losses) I find myself All bare- root plants grown in healthy isolation slipping into almost biblical language, such is the level of the STRAWBERRY PLANTS - CERTIFIED ORGANIC – PHPS Elite plague. They have driven us to despair. In hindsight the best Certificate Honeoye, Pegasus, Hapil, Cambridge Favourite, Alice, advice for ground such as ours is to bare fallow and grow Symphony, Florence, Sophie. Available Nov – Dec and Feb nothing for a couple of years and overwinter with mustard. – May. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence about mustard, which RASPBERRY CANES - CERTIFIED ORGANIC– PHPS is thought to reduce populations of wireworm, but I have ‘A’ Certificate not read any plausible explanation of how this is supposed Malling Jewel, Julia, Tulameen, Octavia. Available Nov onwards (also other varieties conventionally grown) to happen. Mustard has biofumigant properties and some varieties express this attribute more than others. Whilst this BLACK/ RED/WHITE CURRANT , GOOSEBERRY & might reduce fungal and bacterial soil borne disease I doubt JOSTABERRY BUSHES– CERTIFIED ORGANIC whether biofumigation will kill wireworms and if it does, All 1 year bushes, grown from PHPS Certified Stocks. Available Nov onwards what of the fate of earthworms? www.welshfruitstocks.co.uk Richard Plowright OR SEND SAE FOR LIST TO: WELSH FRUIT STOCKS Richard worked as a research plant nematologist from 1980 until BRYNGWYN, KINGTON, HR5 3QZ 2000 when he started growing commercially. After a spell working Tel/fax - 01497 851209 Email - [email protected] on international standards with SA and IFOAM he has grown vegetables full-time since 2003.

Page 39 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The chapter, by far the longest in the book, describing in some Book reviews detail the weeds in their different categories was, for me, the most fascinating. For instance, the fact that a single plant of one Weed Management for Organic of our own two most prominent weeds, Prickly Sow-Thistle, (the other being Groundsel), can shed between 20 and 60 thousand Farmers, Growers and Smallholders – seeds with the ability to emerge from March to November. This A Complete Guide by Gareth Davies, makes me break out into a cold sweat, and coupled with the fact Becky Turner and Bill Bond. Crowood that it is such a bastard to get out the ground once rooted, you can appreciate just what we are all up against! With groundsel Press. £19.95 the book rightly points out (as I have found from experience) Visitors to our vegetable plot this season often remark about that after the two leaf stage the seedlings are tolerant of flame how clean the crops look, and my reply is, “ you are right, you weeding. won’t find any weeds here mate “, which of course is not strictly The book ends with specific weed management strategies for true. It does however show that after 21 years of growing here different systems and crops, and for growers the main field at Longmeadow we have learnt how to keep on top of the little vegetable crops are covered. In conclusion I would like to say, blighters before they start to affect the crops and set seed. Our given the subject matter, how readable, well laid out and succinct weed tolerance is low, but after years of looking at other people’s the book is. Highly recommended. organic vegetable holdings, I have noted that everybody seems Hugh Chapman to have a different level of tolerance. This is not only due to the grower’s perennial problem of lack of time to keep on top of Salad Leaves for All Seasons by Charles everything during the main growing season. Lack of experience, particularly when starting out, is another major factor, and this Dowding. Green Books. £10.95 book has a lot of very useful information to help with this. If only Written clearly and concisely throughout with ample information it was around when Patsy and I started out! It must be said that as to varieties, dates, yields and techniques, the author is like many things, there is no substitute for hands-on experience obviously keen to encourage as many people as possible to grow in the field. their own salad crops. He stints on no detail at all and obviously After an introduction that addresses the principles of weed speaks with great knowledge, experience and passion. management on organic farms, the next chapter covers ways in This book is very clearly aimed at the amateur grower and is which farmers and growers can prevent weed problems arising overflowing with the author’s enthusiasm; “This is about through crop planning and rotations. It gives a whole range cultivating health … “ (P59). This does mean however that for of options, examples being fertility building leys, break crops, the professional organic grower there are one or two suggestions cover crops, living mulches, intercropping, under-sowing and that might not sit well with certification bodies, including fallowing. Seed rates, crop spacing, primary, secondary and unfortunately a lot of the variety examples which can’t be found tertiary tillage are also discussed. Quite a lengthy chapter follows as organic seed. This seems even more of a shame as the loving on direct weed control, with the latest information on the never- detail with which the author describes his favourite varieties ending variety of mechanical and flame weeders, although I really makes the mouth water. I am also not sure how some of think that there could have been more coverage of the latter. his harvesting techniques would translate to a bigger scale. This of course begs the question whether any book covering such That said the book is packed full of the author’s tried and a wide range of subjects can go into sufficient detail on all the tested methods, experience and growing wisdom and has lots topics. I think not, so keep sending those articles into the OGA of valuable information for any grower, no matter what scale journal! they are working on. Meticulous detail on spacings, planting The economics of weed management follows this, the information dates, harvest dates, rotations, successions, etc make it almost a given being particularly useful for larger growers and farmers. I foolproof guide to providing some level of fresh salad ingredients must add that we have never lost or given up on a crop because all year round no matter how limited (or extensive) your growing of the effort and cost of weeding it, although we are relatively space. The suggestions for container growing and raised boxes small growers. There is a short bit on the environmental cost will particularly thrill the urban gardener, whilst the undercover and carbon footprint of weeding - again this needs covering in winter salads and unusual variety of leaves will undoubtedly greater depth. One of the examples given is the energy use in give inspiration to the commercial salad bag producer. flame weeding and inter-row work in carrots - twice the MJ/ha There is excellent cross-referencing throughout the book which of conventional herbicide treatments! On the other hand this ratio makes it a really useful reference tool and it has already joined is reversed for farmers comb weeding winter wheat compared to my core collection of texts on growing. conventional spraying. Thalia Nunis

Page 40 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 transplants which were adequate if not as good as I would Fieldnotes have liked. This year I used Bulrush again and have found it to be poor. There also seems to be a variation from one tray to another presumably because some bags are better and Queries than others. I bought 6 pallets selling 4 pallets on to other growers in the area all of whom have found it disappointing. Winter Spinach Cath Morris did trials last year for Organic Centre Wales (see Buffy Rickeard, Olive Grove Organics (OG#4) Free OG#2). The Bulrush did well and the Klasmann was poor Mediterranean themed holiday on the banks of the Tamar as it was for me. She had found the Klasmann to be good in return for suggestions of good spinach varieties for over the previous year. The other composts she tested were all winter. unsatisfactory in one way or another. I am going to send samples for analysis to a laboratory that Cath Morris used In response to the ‘cheeky return offer’ offering a free Med last year. themed hol. on the banks of the Tamar...etc. which sounds very intriguing... I have experimented for many years to I would be interested to hear from other growers. find a suitable variety (of winter spinach) to grow in my John Steer greenhouse.

I can report that for the past 2 years I have successfully French beans? grown Tarpy (org. seed available from Tamar (!) Organics) After planting out some (not too many) climbing French and Lazio (org seed from Edwin Tucker). We sow the seed beans in a polytunnels back in the spring I said to Jan – in late Sept in module trays (approx 124 s, though I have “now we are going to find out why it is we haven’t grown gone smaller to 264 s! if I don’t have to hold them too long). these things for 15 years”. Does anybody have a scheme for You can direct drill, but we’re usually waiting for a summer growing them (under protection) that keeps them tame and crop to come out, so don’t have any space before end Sept. In manageable, and allows for rational and ordered picking? balmy sub-tropical Guernsey (!) we start picking at the end Ours pretty soon turned into a bosky thicket, with a maze of of Jan and carry right on picking the leaves until we want undifferentiated stems twining into ropes and throttling each the crop out in late April, ready for a summer greenhouse other. After 3 very productive weeks a mould set in, rapidly crop such as tomatoes or something like that. This year I’ve rotting the stems so that after another week the whole mass a bit of vacant space now, so am experimenting sowing it was more dead than alive. early August to see when it will mature... watch this space! Dwarf beans – we always grew Irago, until Tozers stopped Certainly it’s an excellent winter/early spring crop to fill the supplying it 3 or 4 years ago. It was one of only two veg boxes and people don’t seem to tire of it week after week . . varieties we never gave up on (leek Jolant is the other). They . or at least they don’t say so! offered Green Arrow as a replacement. This is a nice bean, Anne Sandwith smoother and smarter than Irago, but the plant is weak and Guernsey Organic Growers the beans are smaller – 6” against up to 8” long, and thinner too. As a grower’s bean it is a poor replacement, picking Module compost being time and time money. Can anybody recommend a I have been having trouble with organic module compost currently available good, bold dwarf French bean, preferably and wondered how other growers are finding the compost one smooth and smart enough to be a customer’s bean also? currently available. My experience is that it is extremely Tim Deane variable from year to year and even from bag to bag in the same batch.

In the past I found Sinclairs compost satisfactory but in the 3 years since that ceased to be available I have had mixed results. In 2006 I used Bulrush from Vitagrow which seemed OK that year. Last year I used Klasmann which seemed lacking in nutrients. I normally use liquid feed weekly on leeks but do not do not expect to need to feed other plants such as brassicas which are in the trays for a much shorter time. However, last year everything looked yellow and stunted until I started feeding which enabled me to have

Page 41 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 The Need for Producerism

In his book Big Babies, Michael Bywater amusingly identifies Ideally, producers would have benefited from selling their many features of contemporary Britain, painting a picture of produce to committed organic buyers, and Newman Turner what might be termed the Infantile Society. Curiously absent made early efforts in this direction, establishing the Whole from the index, though, is the philosophy responsible for so Food Society in the late 1940s. But he was under no illusion many of the attitudes the book describes: consumerism, or the that a firm balance of power must be maintained, writing belief that we should define ourselves by what we purchase in 1955: “The end of austerity for the consumer means the and ingest. Such is its pervasiveness that it is now almost beginning of austerity for the farmer.” That same year, the impossible to think outside the ideology of the “free market”, Rural Reconstruction Association insisted that consumer with its “brands” – as the presence of marketing men in suits demand should not be sacrosanct. The day was approaching, at recent Soil Association conferences testifies. though, when Adam Smith, who believed that consumer interests should always be paramount, would become the The organic movement’s attitude to consumerism is distinctly scriptural authority on economic values. The Infantile Society ambivalent. One prominent figure assured me a couple of years emerged, with consumers demanding as much as they liked, ago that the movement is “revolutionary”, but events like the as cheaply as possible, whenever they liked, without regard Feast of Albion would seem to indicate otherwise. Similarly, to consequences or to the belief in limits and acceptance to measure the movement’s success by the increasing range of of finitude which has always been central to the organic organic beauty products might indicate a dangerous tendency philosophy. to compromise. Yet, at the same time, leading organic voices point out the urgent need for an entirely different form of Newman Turner was clear-sighted about where the economy and food system. consumerism of the “affluent society” would lead; farmers now find themselves poorer and fewer in number than could have The liaison with consumerism is a comparatively recent been imagined 50 years ago, while most of those who survive feature of organic history: a history which can be traced back are at the mercy of supermarkets and food corporations. at least seven decades. In the early years, its pioneers were For the organic movement to become too identified with concerned about producers, and one might argue that to see such a system is potentially self-destructive, particularly as human beings as producers (farmers, foresters, shipbuilders, that system is itself based on a dwindling and increasingly miners, craftsmen) is considerably more inspiring than seeing expensive resource . And by identifying with the world of them as consumers. The Kinship in Husbandry group of the the super-rich and the rock aristocracy, the movement can 1940s, several of whose members joined the Soil Association only provoke further criticisms from those opponents who Council, defended the interests of producers and sought to condemn “organic” as a brand for the well-heeled. create a viable rural economy. Organic methods of cultivation were intended not just to provide healthy food, but to create a The organic movement can still be “revolutionary” if it tries stable, fertile soil which would prevent agricultural and social to redress the imbalance which has favoured consumers over disasters like the United States Dust Bowl. producers. Events are moving fast, and we may be witnessing changes which will force consumers to recognise the limits It is worth recalling how rich the early movement was in of the earth they inhabit and to respect and reward those practical, productive experience. There were the farmers, Eve on whose efforts their survival depends: the farmers and Balfour, Friend Sykes, Philip Oyler, Laurence Easterbrook, growers. Jorian Jenks, Sam Mayall, J. M. Moubray and Newman Turner; the agriculturalists Sir Albert Howard, Sir George Stapledon Philip Conford and Lord Bledisloe; the estate owners Lord Portsmouth and Philip Conford is an Honorary Research Fellow in the History Aubrey Westlake; the foresters, Rolf Gardiner and Richard St. Department at Reading University, and currently working on a Barbe Baker, and the horticulturalists Lawrence Hills and J. L. second volume of organic history. H. Chase. H. J. Massingham was a keen gardener whose book The Wisdom of the Fields celebrates the abundance created by pioneering organic farmers and growers. Edgar Saxon’s journal Health and Life, in whose pages some seeds of later consumerism can be discerned, nevertheless contained much practical advice on producing health-giving food. The Soil Association journal Mother Earth was, in its early issues, so opposed to consumerism that it refused to carry commercial advertising.

Page 42 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Goodbye cockleshell heroes

I once had hopes for a little cockle shell to wear on my hat and of these things: of transition towns, of localised economies to follow as an image on sign posts and way mark stones. It and of the madness of the casino. They have a binary, internal would have been a guide for those of us who’d live on primary pardoning system: one department busily authenticates ground and seek primary values there in village shops, town centralised distribution, while the other is against it! Dear centres and market squares. I have a thought: the distinction Growers -it’s time to stop the nonsense. The Soil Association of our age is neither technology, nor liberal democracy. Our has an influence far larger than the size of her institute. She real distinction is that ours has been the first society to live for must gather up the responsibility, which comes with that so long without an economy. All species, let alone all social disproportionate influence. Until an economy is made, many systems must have an economy. We have managed without will have no choice but to remain in the casino. But! Here’s a one by stepping outside Time on the borrowed compression of thing: the new E.C. logo could be a blessing if we play our cards millions of fossilized years. We live, levitated above economic right. It could label anonymous organic health commodity for necessity, in an oil powered casino whose engines will soon Caesar, while our famous symbol could be the way mark and run dry. I hope the gamblers can find ways to descend into trend setter for a fashionable mass exodus to Primary Ground. the landscape for which human economies have evolved to It will show proper shops, convivial market squares and - no, fit, just so, and where History will be waiting for us. However not an austere - localism. I can see it stitched onto sails of our terrain will not become apparent until we begin to inhabit comparative advantage embarking with temperate produce it, because we learn from what we do. to the Med and returning with wine, olives and travellers’ tales. While the symbol encourages more produce into super In that primary landscape we’ll not get owt’ for nowt’, because markets than it guides out again, it does more harm than good. we’ll be bound to earthly laws of Physics and Bio-Chemistry, It’s not just warming. It’s M & S warming. I feel sorry for super which in heady Casino’s Days we’d come to ignore. However, markets. Poor things! Having so recently gained the rights of in taking in proportion to what we give, we shall find the joy of feeling Citizens, they are perched like reluctant ghosts from reconnection. Counting familiar assets as they re-appear, will an Age which is past. They must die, I’m afraid, like all of be the dynamo to replace that two and a half percent growth us. Swallow your tears and remove the cockle shell. This is in spending, which we were driven to fight for in the Casino. I the Time of Romance: of the Quest for the Organic Economy. have called this lost economy of mine, the Romantic Economy, Don’t look back. because we have a Quest to find her again. I’d hopes to call her the Organic Economy, because all true economies must Patrick Noble function as organisms do! Organic growers will understand. If you want to read more: Notes from the Old Blair and Bush by The saddest thing: My organic cockle shell has become the Patrick Noble AKA Ernest Organic is published by Matador Press, intellectual property of a sect of Pardoner Monks, who sell and is available from Patrick (most Ernest) Noble for £10, Telephone clean-limned virtue by points to offset equivalent guilt. They 01745 540207, or from: www.bryncocynorganic.co.uk have a shop in the foyer of the Casino (to change it from within) and also to gain access to the attractively lucrative health food needs of the punters there. Virtue is sold in the produce of carbon sequestering land to offset the vice of its centralised procurement and distribution. Health food can be bought for a child whose future is by the same point removed. Air freight is pardoned for a couple of percent on the price of a hill o’ development beans.

How brave and true our small cockle shell of a symbol could have become, but she is nostalgic for her achievement of a few years back, which was acceptance into the commercial mainstream. As the Pardoners say, profligate health food markets have expanded organic acreage. However, endorsing those markets endorses a future in which healthy eating will be forgotten! I think we shall be more concerned with flood, famine, resource wars…….

Well - the Pardoners have another department, which speaks

Page 43 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Come and join us! Non-OGA Events Join the Organic Growers Alliance and help to build an Tuesday 18th November and Wednesday 19th November effective representative organisation for organic horticulture. Soil Association annual conference. British Commonwealth Benefit your business through increased opportunities for Museum in Bristol. This year’s conference is focusing on information exchange and new insights into the craft of ‘UK Food & Renewable Energy – The Plan for Britain’. With growing organically. Enjoy the sense of community that Britain’s food supplies threatened at more than any other time comes from contact with other growers! Membership includes in recent history, this two-day event will begin to address and entry to all OGA events at cost, subscription to this journal, attempt to provide some of the solutions towards putting in access to other forms of communication as they are developed place secure, resilient systems of food production, based on and support from a recognised representative body in dealing renewable energy. www.soilassociation.org/conference with any regulatory and bureaucratic problems that may affect Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th January 2009 – The Organic your business. Research Centre’s Producer Conference. Harper Adams • Full membership is open to anyone whose living depends University College, Newport, Shropshire. wholly or mainly on commercial organic growing. This includes those employed in practical horticultural research and advice. OGA EVENTS • Associate membership is available to nongrowers who Friday 17th October 2008 Farm walk at Hankham Organics – OGA wish to support the work of the OGA. It covers the same event. access to events and publications, but does not include Hosted by Miles Denyer, Hankham Nurseries, Hankham, East Sussex, the right to a vote in any ballot of members. BN24 5BE. Farm walk starts at 12.30pm. They have 1.5 acres of glass, 3 acres field. Very wide range of traditional and glasshouse crops for box scheme and wholesale. Annual subscription for both categories is £25. Topics for discussion include intensive, protected cropping, plant raising. • Student membership - as associate membership, but with £15 OGA members and £25 for non-members. a subscription of £15. For all OGA events please book a place in advance (and let us know if General enquiries: you’re not coming!!) but payment can be made on the day. Early booking OGA, Bradshaw Lane Nursery, Pilling, Preston avoids us having to cancel events, due to lack of numbers. PR3 6AX Contact James Clapp: 07973 426152 [email protected] Evenings: 01874 636399 Membership enquiries: Email [email protected] [email protected] The OGA committee ORGANIC GROWER Alan Schofield, Lancs (Chair): 01253 790046 Debra Schofield (Treasurer): 01253 790046 The Organic Grower is edited by Tim Deane and Phil Scott Sneddon, Derbyshire: 01629 583009 Sumption. Roger Hitchings, Carmarthenshire: 01554 810158 [email protected] Phil Sumption, Leicestershire: 024 7621 7744 [email protected] Peter Richardson, Wiltshire: 0782 1403739 Production by Dave Webb at Garden Organic James Clapp, Oxon: 07973426152 To advertise contact: Remke Cool Iain Tolhurst, Oxon: 01189 843428 [email protected] Adam York, Manchester: 0161 718 5328 Mike Westrip, Powys: 07896 130982. Remke Cool, Somerset: 01278 734580 Subscription to The

Organic Grower only • £16 for individuals • £24 for institutions Contact editors

The copy date for the November issue is October 7th.

Page 44 - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008