One family farming business in Shropshire has benefited from the diversification into flowers, both economically and environmentally. Gaina Morgan finds out more.
The hand-tied bunches of flowers are just a part of one Shropshire farming estates modern take on the age-old art of harnessing energy from the sun.
The flower varieties might have come from an English country garden of yesteryear, rather than a half acre of polytunnels and beds, but they are the product of 21stcentury technology. The nourishment is provided by an anaerobic digester (AD) that can power 1,375 or so homes and that, in turn, is fuelled by maize grown on the 222-hectare (550-acre) Home Farm, along with cow slurry and chicken manure bought-in from a neighbour.
Tiff Corbett and Emily Westall set up The Shropshire Flower Company five years ago, while the AD is the brainchild of Tiffs husband, Ed, and both are based on the estates farm, Home Farm, owned and run by Eds parents, Tim and Priscilla Corbett.
Ed and Tiff are committed to business models that will contribute to the health of the planet. And so, the flower business, developed when Tiff and Emily decided to give up demanding careers, was a perfect fit.
Tiff says: We started in 2017. I was deputy head of a large comprehensive and Emily was an engineer with Severn Trent Water.We both decided on a career change because we have children.
I came up with the idea of putting a polytunnel up on the site of the anaerobic digester, using some of its resources. We can use the waste heat, power and the byproduct, which is the digestate, a very good growing medium, to grow flowers.
Emily loves flowers and was very keen to be involved, so we grow on around half an acre quite intensively, but also chemical free and this year peat free as we use the digestate. We also sell our flowers within a 10-mile radius.
Were very aware of our environmental footprint and removing peat from the process has been an important goal for us. Its not easy because peat free compost is very low in nutrients, however, when you mix it with the digestate, which is very high, we manage to find a balance that works.
Diverse
Tiff is largely responsible for the marketing and dealing with clients, while Emily takes the lead on growing and propagating the flowers, using heat from the digester. Their shared ethos means they are firm about promoting British-grown flowers with low mileage and a low carbon footprint.
She feels few people consider where their flowers have come from, but the average Valentine bouquet travels 4,000 miles before it reaches the kitchen table. Tiff and Emilys flowers are delivered in water, cut the same day and delivered to the customer within 10 miles, with everything possible done to reduce the carbon footprint.
Different flowers need a different growing medium. Lilies are grown in a mixture of sand and digestate, while tulips thrive in 100 per cent well-rotted digestate. The heavy clay soil has benefited enormously from the enrichment of the digestate as a soil improver, and environmental concerns are paramount including handpicking slugs off the plants.
Training and support come from the Flowers From the Farm organisation and customers range from subscription through to celebrations, weddings and funerals. The blooms command a premium, because they are locally and sustainably produced and, of course, for their all-important scent.
The land at Home Farm has been contract farmed by the Owen family for the last 25 years or so and the digestate has become a very important soil improver. Its value is especially appreciated against the background of soaring fertiliser prices.
The Grade 1 milling wheat is destined for breadmaking via the ADM Mill at Liverpool and Allied at Manchester.
The recent rise in fertiliser and fuel costs means it has become very expensive to grow crops such as milling wheat and rape conventionally, as with the rape destined for cooking oil.
Milling wheat needs more fertiliser than feed wheat and so, the digestate applied to the wheat and rape will have an even more marked effect on keeping costs down this year. Contractors Chris and Tom Owen predict that the cost savings of using digestate on the 222ha (550 acres) of arable ground will be huge, although fuel costs mean spreading the digestate is significantly more expensive.
Chris says: Probably a quarter of the farm will be in maize this year. It gets digestate before sowing and we have also tried putting digestate on a growing wheat crop this spring.
Thats a first, mainly because the farm is quite damp and it usually isnt dry enough to do that on a growing wheat crop in the spring, before it gets too late, and the wheat is too big. The wheat was planted in September/October, and we put some digestate on at the end of March.
We do use minimum tillage where appropriate and the farm is in a Mid Tier Countryside Stewardship Scheme.
Rotations
The maize is harvested in the first week of October, weather allowing. It is chopped shorter than dairy maize, before being clamped near the digester. Yields last year averaged 52 tonnes/ha (21t/acre) at about 31 per cent dry matter, but are normally nearer 42-44t/ha (17-18t/acre), having only had digestate applied.
The cropping system has been adapted because the digestate works particularly well when applied in spring. Spring barley is now sown in front of the rape, which is not as effective in terms of timing for the rape crop, but better in terms of utilising the nutrients.
Liquid digestate was applied to the wheat for the first time this year, at a rate of 40cu.metres of liquid digestate per hectare, supplying 2.8 kilograms per cu.m of nitrogen. It was then topped up with 100-120kg of N, roughly half the amount that would otherwise be applied.
The maize, cow slurry and chicken muck is augured into the tanks every 15 minutes, at 25-28t a day, where the bugs chop up the long carbon chains in the sugars, until they are methane and carbon dioxide which bubble off gas. The gas from the tanks drives modified diesel engines which then produce electricity, the main output.
Ed says that it generates 500 kilowatts of electricity 24 hours a day and, after taking into account downtime and the electricity used to run the plant, about 11,000kW of electricity is exported per day.
Ed says: Its a big solar plant really. Its satisfying. We have got to become more sustainable.
You go back 200 years, and all your energy would have been grown on the farm, to feed the draught horses or whatever. We have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.
Weve got to come up with different ways. The Government subsidised lots of different technologies and some have worked really well, like wind and solar where they can run now without subsidies.
Digesters are another one, so without subsidies we wouldnt have done it. We had to pay for the installation, but then you get paid for the electricity you produce in the same way as you get paid for solar energy.
Expanding
The capital investment was such that Ed set up his own separate business, albeit borrowing money against the farm. His father, although definitely outside his comfort zone with the scale of the capital investment, as well as the nature of the new technology, had been very supportive.
The system runs relatively straightforwardly but does need continual monitoring. The engines will shut down randomly, often from a blip on the power grid, and that can mean coming down in the middle of the night to reset the system.
On a summers night, though, there is some compensation in the scent from the flower farm wafting over on the warm air.
And it is this multidimensional approach to business which will see them through.
Ed says: The farm is the base for multiple, independent but related businesses. Because each business is run independently, we can make decisions quickly and dont get bogged down by politics or diverging priorities. However, they complement, help and encourage each other to form a circular system.
Farm facts
- 222 hectares (550 acres) farmed in hand, with other farms rented out
- Growing arable and with a number of diversified businesses
- The Shropshire Flower Company comprises half an acre of open beds and polytunnels
- Arable ground is contract farmed
- Anaerobic digester can power 1,375 homes
- Runs on home grown maize and locally-sourced chicken manure and dairy slurry
- Digestate is used as a soil improver across the arable area and for the flower farm
