An award-winning Breckland farmer is harnessing the plant power of natural "companions" to boost margins, nurture the soil and bring nature back to the fields.
James Bucher, of Hall Farm at Knettishall, between Diss and Thetford, is the current holder of the Ian MacNicol Farm Conservation Award, organised by Norfolk FWAG (Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group).
He impressed judges with his outstanding conservation work and a "remarkable approach to regenerative agriculture".
It is centred around "companion crops" and intercropping - growing plants together to reduce diseases and improve the soil, without the economic and environmental cost of artificial chemicals.
Every cash crop is grown with a companion - oilseed rape is grown with clover and buckwheat, linseed with clover, peas with triticale, and whole-crop rye with vetch.
Meanwhile, beans are grown in the same field as wheat and oat crops for regenerative farming enterprise Wildfarmed, with the legumes fixing nitrogen nutrients in the soil as well as offering a useful by-product.
There is also a new agroforestry project, growing trees in strips within arable fields to reduce soil erosion from the wind and rain, while cover crops protect the land and keep a "living root" in the ground all year round to improve soil structure and biology.
Mr Bucher said: "Pests and diseases love a monocrop, so we are trying to increase diversity in the field to make it less appealing to them.
"We have been doing this for three years now and we have seen good results and no issues with pests and diseases, touch wood, in the last three years.
"In 2023 and 2024 we had very wet springs and significant disease risk in cereal crops, but we have had agronomists come out and have a look and they are amazed that we have not used any chemicals and how clean these crops are. So it definitely works."
The farm also grows blends of four or five wheat varieties at the same time, further increasing diversity and reducing the risk of a single variety falling victim to a disease infection.
"We’re not really focused on banging in these really very expensive so-called top-yielding varieties that are susceptible to various diseases," said Mr Bucher.
"It also encourages wildlife into the field, while straight monocrops that are sprayed heavily are not really conducive to nature.
"We are trying to farm with nature rather than against it."
Mr Bucher said although yields are lower, they were offset by reduced chemical costs and access to government payments under the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI).
"Yields are certainly lower than we had been used to, but I feel that the margins are greater," he said. "Last year we spent about a quarter of what a conventional grower would have spent on a cereal crop. And we only use about 30pc of the nitrogen [fertiliser] we used to.
"We are still getting 6-6.5t/ha of wheat this year, our margins are a lot better and we can access some SFI payments which other people might not be able to access, so I feel like we are better off - and not only that, we are seeing nature return and bird numbers increasing on the farm."
The former dairy unit reverted to a "typical Brecks farm" in the 1980s when the milking herd was sold and an abstraction licence was secured in order to rent land to vegetable growers.
The refocus on conservation started when Mr Bucher returned to the family farm in 2003, keen to find ways to revive degraded soils.
About 20pc of the 600ha farm is now managed under SFI or Countryside Stewardship options.
The farm stopped growing vegetable and sugar beet, and from 2021 it stopped using fungicides, insecticides, plant growth regulators and seed treatments.
A 20-strong herd of red poll cattle, along with a neighbour's sheep flock, grazes arable and cover crops to help restrict diseases, and add nutrients into the field through their manure.
And the agroforestry is another new addition to the landscape, with more than 2,000 trees planted in eight rows within four-metre pollen and nectar strips, separated by 24-metre strips to grow cash crops.
Alternate rows of fruit trees and short-rotation coppice, interspersed with native trees, will provide woodchips for composting or the farm's boiler, and fruit and nuts as another marketable by-product - while also offering another haven for wildlife.
Mr Bucher encouraged more farmers to look at natural solutions to escape the "chemical treadmill", and to focus more on margins and ecological gains rather than seeking ever-higher yields.
"It is a big change, and change can be difficult," he said. "I feel like the SFI is a massive leg-up for people to change for the better, but we need to change the mindset."
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