Transition Farmer: Grazing winter OSR cuts crop disease

Farmers Weekly Transition Farmer Ed Shuldham has been focusing on using data to reduce crop disease pressure and increase soil resilience.

We catch up with him in Wiltshire to find out how the farm’s Transition goals have  progressed so far in 2026.

See also: All updates from Ed Shuldham

See also: Private money, public goods – are farmers in control?

Grazing sheep on wheat and oilseed rape in the autumn and winter is giving arable grower JM Stratton & Co a cleaner crop with fewer disease challenges and more resilient soils.

A Helix trial farm partnership with Hutchinsons was the catalyst for testing this approach and with lessons learned about stocking density, when to graze and for how long, the business is rolling out this policy across its entire arable acreage.

Sheep are turned out onto OSR in early autumn and later on onto cereal crops, with all stock removed before Christmas.

Ed Shuldham, JM Stratton & Co’s business development manager, says working with a grazier who is willing to be reactive is key. If the flock is in the field too long or the ground is too wet, any benefit is wiped out.

“You have to get the stocking rate right too – that’s where you need a really good and reactive shepherd who is able to move sheep quickly and move the fences every few days,” says Ed.

His objective is to regulate growth, to enter the spring with much lower disease pressure, because the disease-susceptible leaf area is not overwintered in wet and mild conditions.

The trials are a good fit for the farming company’s Transition goal of making more use of data. It has also moved forward with its objective of taking natural capital opportunities by creating 394 biodiversity net gain (BNG) units on arable reversion and by realigning a stream to the route where it had naturally flowed.

In the 1950s the watercourse had been integrated into a ditch in order to drain a meadow to make it suitable for arable production, but that ambition was never truly realised, as the field underperformed compared to other cropping land.

“We moved the stream back into the field using maps and satellite imagery of when it was in flood to identify its natural location, removing the gravel from the bed and the topsoil, and rerouting it as a natural meandering stream through the meadow rather than a ditch at the side of an arable field,” says Ed.

The BNG units were added to the Natural England register in September in readiness for grading.