We are partnering with three farms in North Yorkshire to explore the practicalities and potential benefits of multi-species combinable cropping with 2 years of ADOPT funding.

We’re looking for:

• increased protein production,
• reduced inputs, and
• improved profitability.  

Multi-species mixes are known to provide benefits in terms of improved resilience and soil health but are more common when we think of grazing mixes or cover crops. Our seed mix includes 13 species, from 6 different plant families, including cereals, beans and companions like buckwheat and yarrow. We’ll be looking at both a spring drilled crop and an autumn drilled crop, noting the challenges and successes from drilling right through to harvest and exploring the potential to separate out higher value parts of the mix.   

The project is led by John Gibson of Priest Garth Farm, Gillamoor, a 160 acre organic arable and dairy with 300 laying hens. He’s hoping to increase the amount of homegrown protein for the dairy heard and laying flock. Richard Pennock is similarly hoping to increase home grown protein in the rations of his 1000 head beef finishing unit.   

With no livestock on the farm, Matt Emmett is trialling carlin peas in his mix and we’ll be exploring the feasibility of separating these out after harvest.   

Each farm is trialling the mix alongside a cereal and legume grown following the farms standard practice.   

This project is funded by ADOPT, part of Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK.