North Devon Wheat Demo

For the first time in many years, we have a 14 varieties in the ground as of today at Holsworthy!

I think it is important in this day and age that we trial varieties outside of mainstream areas, really push and pull them from a disease pressure point of view, challenge them in heavy wet ground in a high rainfall environment. North Devon is not renowned as being part of the great grain belt of the UK, however it is an important livestock area and these animals need feeding. There is a lot of wheat grown in this area and there are many traditional methods being employed to grow it, along with very robust spraying programs that are becoming ever more costly. So the challenge is to try doing it slightly differently, utilise more organic forms of nutrition, utilise biogass as much as possible for Nitrogen requirements and see what varieties fare the best in this environment under a treated and untreated regime.

Thanks to David Prouse of Roy Prouse Contractors for allowing me to use one of his fields to do this demo and thanks to Steve Cleave who did the driving and drilling. Hopefully all will be revealed in not too distant future and we will have an open day to show farmers what we have achieved.