Sheep were kept to graze the grass in the summer and the turnips and swedes in the winter. Cows and pigs were also kept so plenty of manure was produced each winter to be used as ‘fertiliser’ 18 months later - there was no such thing as artificial fertiliser!

For 90 years or so the farm continued in a similar manner until 1976 when a licence to drill for water was granted. A new irrigation system was installed and from 1978 this was used to pump water onto the crops to increase production. With the aid of government grants (which encouraged farmers to be more productive) farming at Little Morton changed little over the next 5 years.

With the use of water and artificial fertilisers farmers were encouraged by the government-run advisory bodies of the time to grow more high-value crops such as potatoes and sugar beet. The returns from the livestock enterprises on the farm started to look poor in comparison and one by one they were sold off. By the mid-80s the farm had become a purely arable intensive root-crop farm, but within 15 years the performance of these crops started to falter. This was due to the build up of disease in the soil and the gradual decline of natural fertility.

In the late 1990s a new approach was adopted which turned conventional thinking on its head and forms the basis of our farming philosophy today.