Last spring we planted a 32-acre field that has been in continuous tillage for nigh on 50 years with a multi-species (MSS) grass/clover/chicory/plantain mixture.

There was no grand master plan as to why I did this but falling tillage incomes were on my mind. Besides, it’s fashionable (and regenerative) nowadays to bring some livestock back onto tillage farms.

While we have always kept cattle for finishing on grass, this has no bearing on the arable rotation as the existing grass fields are long-term permanent pasture which can’t be ploughed for various reasons. Though this year the winter forage will be mostly arable silage which is now ready to pit.

Now while I wouldn’t consider myself a regenerative farmer in the contemporary sense – nor would I want to – I do think introducing a sheep-grazed short-term multi-species sward can only be good for soil flora and fauna. But there’s nothing new in all of this.

When I was in agricultural college, multi-species were on the way out. The old Cockle Park herb mixtures were similar to today’s multi-species with some cocksfoot thrown in. But in the late 1970s these were deemed rubbishy old mixtures of weeds and something that should be ploughed up next weekend in favour of all-conquering nitrogen-fuelled ryegrasses.

Neither in the 1970s was there any place for livestock on tillage farms. That too was old hat. Trailblazing farmers like Peter Lippiatt in the UK and Michael Hannon in Co Dublin were proving that monoculture continuous cereals were both possible and profitable. Something my young and impressionable mind couldn’t get enough of and I was totally convinced. Happy days indeed.

But 50 years later agriculture has gone full circle and I, reluctantly, have tagged along. But seeing hundreds of sheep grazing the multi-species sward does give me a kick similar to those caffeinated fizzy drinks. There is, indeed, something right about it. But it is not a profitable thing to be doing. Maybe if I owned the sheep, it might be but between fencing and all the rest of it, we won’t make any money out of the project this year. Feelgood has a price.

The harvest

I wish people would stop talking about yields (numerically) this harvest. I’m not bothered about benchmarking with other peoples’ yields. My yields (thankfully) won’t affect you in the slightest and your yields will not make my life even the slightest bit happier. You may be to tillage farming what David Beckham is to women but that’s your own clearly blessed situation. Or you may be having a bad old year that you just want to forget and move on.

The oats were good quality but low yielding. The Clearfield oilseed rape was dismal but the conventional hybrid, DK Exstar, was very good. We’ve made a start on the wheat. Spot yields are good but these are meaningless. Our whole field yields (for the entire sown area) will range from very acceptable (what we’ve already combined), to awful, depending on the extent of bare patches. I’m sick of looking at these patchy crops growing weeds and sycamore trees and it’s a relief to spray off and clear them out of the way for a fresh start.

Parking up the combine beside a grassy margin, I heard a sound I haven’t heard in 50 years (at least around here). A grasshopper was chirping his heart out – it’s called stridulation – which was a summer sound of my childhood.

Maybe he was looking for directions to the multi-species field – I like to think so. So, am I a changed man? As the beer fellow says, probably.