One of the largest salad and vegetable producers G’s Shropshire’s is set to grow 800ha of maize on the Fens, to generate 2.4MW of electricity.
The new venture will serve 4500 houses and also fuel a major new
mushroom enterprise which will deliver 100-130t of mushrooms a week
for Tesco as part of the supermarkets drive to stock fresh UK
produced mushrooms in its stores on a daily basis. The plant will
be fed of 40,000t of maize feedstock and supplemented with 20,000t
of vegetable trimmings on the side. Farms Director and Grower Will
Forbes, see's maize not only as the best means of supplying the
bulk and high DM crops for the maximum methane yields, but also as
a chance to improve soil management across the rotation, slotting
in after wheat and sugarbeet. Maize effectively acts as another
break crop in the rotation so where they would ordinarily try to
muddle in and plant late wheat, maize allows time for the land to
be properly restructured using best practice. Weed beet issues can
now be controlled using maize herbicides whereas in the past weed
wiping, tractor hoeing and hand pulling have always been required
adding another advantage for maize entering into the rotation.
However, careful consideration over what the following crop will be
is required as some products such as 'Calaris' do have crop
restrictions.
