Looking After Crops

Lots of different crops are grown on the farm but the four main groups grown on British farms are:

Click on each of the four groups above to discover details of the crops and the way we farm them.

Cereals

The next group of common plants grown as crops are cereals. These include crops grown for animal and human consumption and fuel.

Wheat is a worldwide cultivated crop that originates from the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most produced food. Wheat grain is a staple food used to make flour for all sorts of breads; biscuits, cakes, breakfast cereal, pasta, juice and noodles and for fermentation to make beer, vodka or biofuel. Wheat is also planted as a feed crop for livestock, and the straw can be used as a bedding. There are some varieties of wheat grown specifically for the straw so it can be used as roofing thatch on old houses.

Barley is an annual cereal grain, which serves as a major animal feed crop with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. In 2005 barley ranked fourth in quantity produced and in area of cultivation of cereal crops in the world. Barley can be planted either in the autumn or in spring and is normally harvested in July or August. Barley that has been planted in the autumn is usually the first cereal to ripen and be harvested in the summer. As well as the grain being used for feeding to livestock or for making beer the straw is sought after as a nice bedding material for winter housed animals.

Oats. The common oat is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed . While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats one of the most common uses is as livestock feed. Oats make up a large part of the diet of horses and are regularly fed to cattle as well. Oats are also used in some brands of dog and chicken feed. Oats don’t yield as high an amount of grain as wheat and barley and for that reason are not as popular to grow on British farms. When horses were used to carry out farm work before tractors were used almost all farms grew oats to feed their own horses.