Event Date : July 6, 2017
On Thursday 6 July 2017, OF&G will be holding their annual National Organic Combinable Crops (NOCC). The event will take place at an organic arable farm in Hampshire.
NOCC is the largest UK on-farm event in the organic calendar. It features panel discussions with experienced industry professionals talking crop varieties, latest agricultural equipment, weeds, seeds, soils, product quality, routes to market and more.
ORC will be there, and we have been planning the crop itinerary to include some ancient wheats (from the Diversifood project) in the autumn drilling such as einkorn and emmer. We also have spring wheat bean intercropping, focusing on varietal choice for mixed cropping. We will lead a station on the farm walk engaging farmers over their ‘impressions’ and scoring of the crop species/varieties.
Trees and hedges can present management challenges for farmers, but could be seen as an untapped resource. Researchers Sally Westaway and Jo Smith from the agroforestry team at ORC will be joined by William Hamer, forestry consultant and director of Hampshire Woodfuel Cooperative to discuss the pros and cons of managing on-farm woody resources including hedges and small woodlands as a productive part of the farm enterprise.
We will demonstrate various practical tools in the field (e.g. earthworm counts, spade tests, VSA etc.), look into different lab tests currently available for farmers (e.g. foodweb tests, total fungi and bacteria, microbial activity, respiration rates etc.), and Simon Parfey from SoilBioLab will bring a couple of microscopes to show different organisms and some mycorrhiza colonised roots.
This is a hugely popular event and tickets will be released early 2017. More information at http://ofgorganic.org/events/national-organic-combinable-crops-nocc-2017/
If you are interested in commercial opportunities at this event, such as trade stands and sponsorship, please contact Steven Jacobs in the OF&G office: 01939 292009 or steven@ofgorganic.org
