#agriculture
agriculture news
Thirty countries deposit crop seeds at a mountain seed archive in a single week
The Hallvard Seed Archive received more than 48,000 samples, including old varieties of wheat, beans and barley from the Asher Valley, as gene banks back up their collections.
Harvest season: rice pours into a waiting trailer
Paddy streaming from a combine’s unloading auger quickly filled the trailer at the edge of the field.
Solar panels raised above crops: first results from an Asher Valley trial
A two-hectare trial near Bramley Cross that grows vegetables and soft fruit beneath raised solar panels has produced its first full season of data, with some crops doing better in partial shade.
Asher Valley grain growers lock in prices with millers through three-year contracts
A shared online platform run by the growers' cooperative has matched more than 80 farms with regional mills on fixed-price deals, offering both sides shelter from swings in the commodity market.
Asher Valley wheat harvest beats five-year average despite a wet spring
Farmers in the Asher Valley have brought in a wheat crop well above recent averages, figures from the Growers' Cooperative show, after a dry, warm finish to the summer rescued fields that were waterlogged at sowing.
Tea gardens: green terraces on the hillsides
From Sri Lanka to Vietnam, Rwanda to Japan, the rhythmic green patterns of tea plantations.
Harvest time in the vineyards: from grapes to landscapes
Frames showing the season's work and scenery in Europe's vineyards.
Beekeeping: honey season at the hives
From mountain slopes to woodland edges, beekeepers' colourful hives and combs full of work.