Visit to Staple Farm by
by Rupert Comer
On Wednesday the 4th of June 2008 the Hatch Beauchamp Juniors stepped on to a Hatch Green bus and set off for Staple Farm in Somerset.The reason why they had gone there was because not long ago, they had planted about 300 wheat seeds there, and they were invited to revisit them.
As soon as we got there Mark and John (who worked at the farm)
showed us to the wheat we had planted there about 6 months ago. When we had seen and talked about our wheat we split into 2 groups; one went with Mark, one went with . As I went with Mark I will tell you what he told us and showed us:
First of all we split the square metre of wheat into quarters and counted how many pieces of wheat in each qaurter. After that we added the amount in each quarter and it
came to 550.
Then we looked at the ears on the wheat (that's the place where the seeds are) and counted the seeds inside and most of them came to about 25.
After that we multiplied 25 by 550 and that came to 13,750.
Which means that we had about 13,750 seeds in our square metre.
Soon after that Mark talked to us about the diseases that wheat can get.
He told us that a plant called black grass can be annoying as it grows lots of roots that get in the way of the wheat and can kill huge numbers.
When we had finished looking at the wheat we walked on, and on the way we saw the pigs that were currently staying at the farm. Mark and John told us they lived by an oak tree in a field full of Christmas trees and the Christmas trees took 15 years to fully grow.
After we had seen the pigs and trees we headed off for a field full of field
beans. John and Mark told us that field beans were eaten in bars in
They then showed us a root of one of them and explained that the dots on the
roots were to store nutrients for the plant.
The last thing we did at Staple farm was in a field that was there especially to attract wildlife.We were quiet for a minute and listened to the birds singing.
When we stopped we looked for insects and other animals in the field.
