Project Consultant : Christine Shaw
The importance of this paper is that it contains much more detail of the experimental cereal yields than many. The yields are for both spelt and emmer during the years 1973 to 1987 in the field system at "Little Butser".
The reference to fields to the east, the west and in the middle can best be appreciated by going to the pictures of Site 1, under the History of the Project. The site faces north, with east and west either side. The "arched" nature of the land means that the middle fields sloped slightly down to both east and west. No clear effect of this on factors such as drainage or leaching has been seen in this data. In fact, the average yield over 15 years suggests a declining trend in yield from east to west, for which no clear reason emerged. [page 64] The nature of the soil is described in the text [page 62].
The dominant effect on yields is the season to season variation caused by the prevailing weather. Other effects are known, such as manuring, but the principal data here is for cropping without manuring [Tables 3-5 pp 68-70].
Created 20 January 2004 - Updated 13 January 2008