20^th August 2024

It’s harvest time at Goodwood Home Farm. Harry Holt, fourth generation farmer, along with his dad John, manage the 12,000 acre organic estate, of which approximately half is woodland and half is farm. We are working with them on a heritage grain programme, and last September, they planted “Miller’s Choice”, for the first time. I met with Harry in mid-August to hear about how they have found growing the crop, which they harvested last week, and which we will be milling into flour shortly.

Harry explains to me they wanted a good seed rate, so they planted 250 kilos per hectare, which is higher than they would usually go – the higher the plant population density the higher the chance of smothering the weeds out. As Goodwood Home Farm is organic (meaning no synthetic pesticides are used), this is one natural technique they use for weed management. Always working to be as sustainable as possible, they implement rotational ploughing, where they put pastures down for three-four years to improve soil fertility, drawing in nutrients from the sub-soil. Harry likens it to charging a battery – while down as pasture, you are recharging the soil fertility. When you plough, some of the energy is drawn out. They have been seeking ways to minimise this, but he explains it does allow them to start with a clean seed bed and releases nutrients for the next crop.

In early spring, Harry ran sheep over the crop in March, to eat the winter die-off. Where the sheep eat the plant, it goes into survival mode and starts regrowth, waking the plant up for spring. This is one example of how on an organic farm the animals work in harmony with the crops. Where the sheep bite the plant off, multiple tillers emerge from one shoot, encouraging the plant to grow and the roots to seek nutrients and recover. The sheep also provide natural fertiliser in the form of manure, turning the dead plant material into nutrients. It’s critical the area is not over-grazed, so this period only lasts two-three weeks.

We head to the grain store to see the results of this year’s harvest. Despite the rainfall experienced over the last few months, Harry said they found Miller’s Choice to be hardier and more disease resistant than the modern wheats he has grown. They harvested last week, with the help of Matthew Davies from Woodhorn, who provides the combine. 

Harry says that although the yield is lower than from conventional wheat, with Miller’s Choice coming in at about 2 ¼ tonnes per hectare to conventional wheat at around 4 tonnes per hectare, he has found it “fantastic to grow” and will plant it again for next year’s harvest. “Modern wheats are bred for higher yields and shorter straw”, Harry explains. “It has gained in yield, but has it lost some nutritional value?”. They will be using home saved seed from this crop to use for next year’s crop, with plans to improve the seeds they keep to work with what suits the soil best here. Miller’s Choice is comprised of the heritage wheat varieties Old Kent Red, Old Burrell, Clovers Red, and Madeiran wheat.

Discussing the rainfall and the wet harvest this year, one of the issues Harry has faced is fusarium, where the root system rots. They work on countering this with sub-soiling to try and help avoid soil compaction (something the weight of modern farming machinery contributes to) and promote drainage. They use clover lays from organic seed which Harry reports does quite well in the wet, focusing on white clover as a companion crop because it’s short. It feeds the wheat nitrogen which is beneficial to it, but there is a risk, he explains, that it can out-compete the wheat. This is one of the reasons he opts for white clover, as being a short variety there is less chance of this.

At Goodwood Home Farm, the soil is thinner and chalkier, making it harder to retain nutrients. The depth of the topsoil is 5-6 inches, compared even with a farm just down the road which has a much deeper topsoil. The upside of this at Home Farm is that waterlogged soil drains much faster. There is so much variation even from field to field geographically, Harry explains that what suits the soil there may not work elsewhere, even just down the road.

The weather plays a huge role in the development of plants. Harry explains they need sunshine to produce sugar in the plant to produce starch, and increase protein levels. This summer has been cloudy and wet. It’s a continual process working out what suits the ground, and it’s their philosophy at Goodwood not to force it – “don’t take out too much from the soil”. 

Roy, who heads up a large section of the Goodwood farm food production, tells me that one of the things they grow at the estate is barley – this needs low nitrogen, and they use the malted barley for their Goodwood beer. He worked at Goodwood as a chef 17 years ago, and has now returned with an immense energy to oversee the production of a huge variety of farm products, encompassing meat, dairy, and gin and beer from their own brewery. There are plans to work with a local bakery to turn the flour from the heritage grains we mill into baguettes to fill with homemade ferments, pickles and cheeses to sell in the farm shop. He lists the four cheeses they produce, a cheddar (aged 12 and 24 months), a camembert style cheese, a blue version of this, and St Roche – a type of young, fresh, semi-hard cloth bound cheese which showcases the natural flavours of the Goodwood milk. Much like the harvest, Roy explains that the flavours of milk change at different times of the year, and you can taste this in the cheeses. Gut health microbiome is at the heart of the farm shop produce, and they hold an annual health summit focusing on this.

After we return from our visit to the grain store, I return with a sample Harry has bagged up for me to take to our lab at the Mill for testing. We test all the grains to understand its qualities and how it will perform when baking. This also informs how we mill it, and the purposes it will be best suited to, to help bakers understand how to get the best out of it. By understanding the grain, from planting to the soil, the weather it has experienced, and learning about its properties, you can work with the natural characteristics of the grain, rather than trying to bend it to purposes it may not be best suited to. Much like planting what suits the soils at Goodwood, we feel you need to work with what nature and the seasons have offered us this year. A huge amount of hard work from Harry and John and their team over the course of many months has gone into growing this beautiful grain in challenging conditions, and we hope you enjoy the flour when it reaches your tables.

You can read more about Goodwood Home Farm on their website here. Home Farm Shop | Organic Meat, Cheese and Milk | Goodwood, West Sussex