Path Net Zero Goes Harvesting!

Food is an important component of the Path Net Zero Calculator, albeit a small portion of the impact of an individual itinerary, however, when it comes to events or multiple trips over time it can quickly add up.

We were privileged this weekend to be invited to see the process of a harvest, the very beginning of the food chain and we naturally jumped at the chance!

About Tyrrell Farm

They are a 3rd generation family arable farm/horticultural business growing cut flowers, Pumpkins, cereals, sugar beet, daffodil bulbs and asparagus. The business was founded in the 1930’s by James William Tyrrell on a smallholding in the centre of Cowbit village, near the town of Spalding in South Lincolnshire.

We spent the day with William Tyrrell (Will) who is now the custodian of the farm.

Quality and Value of Wheat

Cereal crops, and in this case spring wheat has been farmed for thousands of years and is grown over the largest area of land of all grains globally and approximately 550 million acres are farmed.

When we think of wheat, we think of bread, noodles, and pasta but its applications are far wider reaching.

If you follow a gluten free diet, you will know wheat is present in multiple products from sausages to curry powder to table sauces. Wheat grain is also widely used in animal feed.

Very little outside of the grain itself is wasted, and the byproduct of the harvest is used for animal bedding, building materials, thatching and is even used in biofuel (ethanol) and biodegradable plastics.

Several factors determine the application (and value) of the grain including:

1) Moisture, usually around 15% for any wheat.

2) Protein will see the best hard milling wheats up to levels of 15-16%, while soft and lower grade hard wheats down to 10% or lower for feed wheat.

3) Specific weight relates to the size of the wheat grain, measured in kilograms per hectolitre (kg/hl). A larger grain size gives better extraction rates for milling processes and thus offers better value per tonne.

4) General condition is a prerequisite for even basic feed wheats. Any moulds, toxins, bug infestations, ergot (fungus), odours, sprouting and generally poor appearance may render the wheat unsuitable for the purpose for which it is intended.

The Harvest

The task of the day was the harvest of the Spring Wheat. A successful high quality yield means it will be sold through brokers that will predominantly go to Millers for the production of bread.

We ride shotgun in the Combine, and Alan, a neighbouring farmer tells us how it all works along with illustrations and technical advice from the 700 page owners guide located under the drivers seat.

Crops are gathered in by the header at the front, which has a pair of sharp pincers called crop dividers at either end.

A slowly rotating pickup reel pushes the crops down toward the cutter. The reel has horizontal bars called bats and vertical teeth (or bines) to grip the plant stalks.

The cutter bar runs the entire length of the header underneath the reel. Its teeth open and close repeatedly to cut off the crops at their base and the crops are fed toward the centre by spinning augers (screws) and travel up a conveyor to the processing mechanism inside the main part of the combine.

A threshing drum beats the cut crops to break and shake the grains away from their stalks and the grains fall through sieves into a collecting tank below.

The unwanted material (chaff and stalks) passes along conveyors called straw walkers toward the back of the machine. More grain falls through into the tank and there is a huge amount of digital data that is constantly reporting humidity, yield and our location via GPS all the time.

Huge fans split the elements and ensure that (when dry) they are separated.

We unload about 9 tonnes of grain into the trailer carefully coordinating two moving vehicles to get an even distribution.

It’s time to jump vehicles and ride shotgun in the tractor back to the farm. The combine continues its work, and we pass the last delivered load empty on its way back to the field.

On arrival back at the yard, we waste no time. In this job, time is of the essence and the working day is subject to schedules and any equipment availability which all have to synchronise to the weather - and the sky is looking grey.

Will backs up the tractor to a three foot wide collector in one attempt and tilts the trailer and starts offloading. The silo will hold around 100 tonnes of grain for quite some time and the temperature and moisture are continuously monitored, with fans kicking in, if and when needed.

We're interested to know more about the onward journey for the grain when it leaves the yard.

Is it exported? How far will it travel and how?

In Will's words they are a small batch farm and there is no export.

Export is done at a country level or by the huge farm corporations.

There are several Millers in the locality and it will not travel far, the furthest he's known is Manchester and it all goes by HGV's - normally in a single journey per Miller.

Recycling and Waste

What happens with the byproduct of the harvest?

So, it turns out a neighbouring farmer with livestock has an excess of "muck", which Will needs to fertilise the fields and Will has an excess of straw and grain that the livestock farmer needs for bedding and feed in the barns. The cooperative eco system is historic.

Finally, we ask about equipment, assets and plant (machinery).

The farm recycle everything, they rarely throw a single part away and retain as much as possible as "it will always come in handy one day"

They maintain their equipment and value it as a part of their team, and sure enough, as we are talking a tractor arrives to remove the header from the Combine.

It's two years away from being 40 years old having never missed a day of work in its life.

Agricultural Impact

We were keen to understand the environmental impact of farming and found the AHDB - Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board a very good source of information in particular to the comparison of UK agriculture emissions compared to other industries.

In the UK (2019), it was estimated that just 10% of the country's total GHG (Green House Gasses) emissions came from agriculture, equivalent to 46.3 Mt CO2e per year.

Emissions from transport (27%), energy supply (21%), business (17%) and residential (15%) were all higher than those from agriculture.?

The main GHG emitted from agriculture was methane from ruminants - hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals (56%), followed by nitrous oxide from fertilisers (31%) and carbon dioxide predominantly from energy and fuel (13%).

It is estimated that agriculture is responsible for 47% of the UK's methane emissions and 68% of the UK's nitrous oxide emissions.

Beef, Lamb, Pork and Dairy farming are the main contributor to methane emissions, and we found that the impact of the UKs carbon dioxide emissions at just 2% amazingly low (mainly from machinery) – an advocate to arable farming.

We highly recommend a visit here:

Greenhouse gas emissions: agriculture | AHDB

Thank you so much to the Tyrrell family for your hospitality, it was amazing.

Please give these guys a visit, they're an incredible farm and family.

Farmers - Bulbs & Cut Flowers - Lincolnshire (tyrrellsfarmcowbit.co.uk)