The Tracing Paper

Ever wondered just what’s growing in the fields? Most crops are grown for food - either for us or for animals - but how do the crops in the fields relate to the food on our plates?

Some crops - potatoes, carrots, onions - are easily identified, especially close to harvest and by anyone who grows veg at home.

But how many gardeners grow sugar beet or even wheat? How to distinguish the various grass species of cereal - wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale? What are some of the more unusual crops - hemp, linseed, echium, miscanthus - actually used for?

Judging from the Google queries that have led people to my post on the yellow fields of oilseed rape now colouring vast swathes of the countryside, there’s plenty of curiosity about the crops in our fields.

British Field Crops (A Pocket Guide to the Identification, History and Uses of Traditional and Novel Arable Crops in Great Britain) - UKUS- written and published by Sally Francis, will answer all these questions.

This excellent “pocket guide” (for those with large, agricultural pockets!) covers over 90 crops, all grown on farms in Great Britain, with descriptions and drawing to aid identification, as well as information on the history, cultivation and uses of the crops.

The diverse information provided covers the technical, linguistic, historical and practical. You’ll learn that triticale is a modern hybrid of durum wheat and rye, that rye was originally a weed in wheat fields, that rutabaga’s name comes from the Swedish for ram’s root, and that Calendula (pot marigold) has been commercially grown since 2006 for uses including fast-drying yacht varnish.

Clear line drawings show ripe crops in outline, with useful details of distinguishing parts. No more confusion between bearded wheat (with its spreading, straggly awns, or bristles) and barley (with its tight brush of vertical awns).

Dr Francis carefully explains all technical terminology in a useful glossary, from aftermath - the short stems left after harvest - to winter crop - a usually higher-yielding crop sown in the autumn. The guide as a whole successfully combines clarity and readability with detail and rigour.

Anyone left hungry to learn more about farming in the UK should turn to the definitive Primrose McConnell’s Agricultural Notebook - UKUS- first published in 1883 but fully updated to reflect the farming industry in the 21st century.

Essential Reading

British Field Crops (A Pocket Guide to the Identification, History and Uses of Traditional and Novel Arable Crops in Great Britain) by Sally Francis UKUS

Primrose McConnell’s The Agricultural Notebook edited by Richard Soffe UKUS

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