A Norfolk farm says a "risk mitigation" strategy of growing cover crops and grazing them with sheep has proven its worth in a wet winter of storms and floods.
Pages Farm, at Wood Dalling, between Fakenham and Aylsham, introduced the new system to safeguard its two most precious resources - soil and water.
The family partnership, which farms 1,858 hectares of mainly arable land, includes Peter Perry-Warnes, his wife Anne, brother Tom and son Rick, whose wife Hannah also works in the office.
To protect the land during the winter, about 400 hectares is planted with cover crops - a mixture of plants with diverse rooting depths to improve soil structure, allowing faster drainage of surface water, while keeping nutrients in the field where they can benefit the next food crop, rather than polluting rivers during rainstorms.
Most of the plants are then grazed off by about 1,000 sheep - supplied by 18-year-old Norfolk shepherd Alex Lockhart.
As well as the environmental gains, the family said this brings the added economic benefit of supporting a young farmer in his efforts to expand his business.
Rick Perry-Warnes said: "The roots go down, which helps the soil structure, but probably the biggest thing is that the plant takes all the nutrients out of the soil over the winter, which are normally the wettest months, so it stops the nutrients from leaching down into the land drains and the watercourses, so they should be held in the plant.
"And when you graze them the sheep are natural muck-spreaders - they eat it, and then as they wag their tail they are spreading it back on the ground which then puts the nutrients back on top of the soil.
"You really notice the benefit of cover crops in a year like this - anywhere the soil is in good health, where it has been farmed properly, looked after and not damaged, the crops look fine.
"Anywhere the soil has been poorly farmed, crops look waterlogged and awful. Healthy soil is beneficial in both a drought and wet times."
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The farm uses a specialised grazing mix for two thirds of its cover crops, including forage rape, tillage radish, turnip rape, berseem clover, and stubble turnips. The other third, on heavier land unsuitable for grazing, would contain winter oats, oil radish and phacelia.
"We use as many different species of plant as we can," said Rick. "The oil radish is really deep-rooting, and oats are shallow-rooting so it is all about trying and get a root system through the profile down to a foot deep over the winter.
"It keeps the soil open, and keeps it alive. The worms love it. And the more worms you've got, the more holes there are for the water to filter through."
Peter Perry-Warnes said the manure from the grazing animals had also removed the need for artificial phosphate and potash on the land.
But he is also proud of the opportunities this system has offered to a young sheep farmer.
"It is helping a young fella get a step onto the ladder, because otherwise how does a young fella get into farming?" he said. "We are very pleased to help him."
Alex Lockhart, based in Melton Constable, runs his livestock venture with his father Bruce, managing and fattening 5,500 lambs on farms across the county during the winter, as a "bed and breakfast" service for other sheep owners.
The work on Pages Farm is also helping with his ambitions to expand his own flock of 350 ewes, he said.
"It is becoming more and more popular for farmers to put a cover crop in for the winter, and for what I am trying to do it is hugely important that we can work with those farmers and they give us a chance to put lambs onto the cover crops," he said.
"I would not have had this chance if people like that had not given me the chance to put some lambs on there. It is allowing me to grow my business and it is also allowing me to increase my own flock of ewes at a good pace."
Ben Steed, regional sales manager for Frontier Agriculture, which advises the farm on its agronomy, said there are now payments available through the government's new Sustainable Farming Incentive to help farmers establish cover crops.
"There are a number of benefits," he said. "Farmers have been doing these sorts of things for the right reasons for a long time, but finally you can access some funding and reward for doing that.
"Hopefully, it is inspiring more of us to do this type of thing."
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