In welcoming the visitors, Mr Pearson-Gregory gave a brief description of the farm. He told them the 370-acre livestock and arable farm had converted to organic some eight years ago. He explained the reason for going organic was that he could see no future for the farm producing wheat at £70 a tonne. It is now a registered Soil Association organic farm. The host farmer stressed the importance of clover in his system. He said it built up soil nitrogen and provided high-quality grass for grazing and hay and silage for winter feed. In answering a question about switching to organic, his response was: “My only regret is that I cannot spray the thistles out.” He told the visitors the level farm, with its small fields and “fairly easy soil” was an ideal farm for organic production. There was some permanent pasture but the rest of the farm was in an arable short-term ley rotation aimed at building up the soil fertility. A two to three years ley is followed by wheat and then triticale. Mr Pearson-Gregory said that triticale would thrive better on the poorer land, was disease-free and its yield was only slightly less than wheat. After the triticale, the land is leased out for two years to another local organic producer to grow a crop of carrots, followed by potatoes. The potatoes are followed by wheat before being grassed down again. The land for the potato crop receives a liberal application of farmyard and turkey manure and having two roots crops in succession reduces the disease risk to the cereal crops. Some rye is sown for spring sheep grazing before land is ploughed for carrots and hot mustard is now being grown prior to the potato crop. Mr Pearson-Gregory said: “As well as being a good crop to grow and work in to improve fertility prior to the potatoes being planted, hot mustard, when incorporated into the soil, is regarded as a biological environmentally friendly method of dealing with the problem of wire-worms.” The 300 ewes and their lambs are run on a limited area of permanent pasture and the very clovery grass leys, which eliminates the need to use fertiliser nitrogen.

Surplus grass is made into silage for winter feed. The farm runs a closed ewe flock, which was originally based on Welsh-halfbreds but now some ewes are put to a Rouge ram to produce replacements, while the rest go to a Texel to produce butchers lambs. The lambs are sold through a co-op marketing group, half going off the ewes in June and July, the rest going in December and January. Edward Abell, the local Grassland Society’s immediate past president, remarked how very impressed he was with the standard of farming, especially the amount of clover in the excellent leys and how well the sheep and the crops looked. Mr Abell said it was easy to see why the judge had given the farm first prize last year.