The first bulrush harvest for a pioneering wetter farming trial site in Manchester has taken place.
The typha (bulrush) seed heads were harvested at Steve Denneny’s farm in Greater Manchester, following two years of work to establish the wetter farming site in conjunction with the Wildlife Trust.
The area was initially seeded by drone in 2024. While other trial sites across Europe have harvested bulrushes by hand, this site is one of only two in the UK utilising specialised machinery – in this case, the farmer’s digger, adapted with a reed cutting bucket on the end.
Biopuff
The bulrush heads will be used to manufacture innovative eco-friendly padded jackets called Biopuff, designed to replace the use of goose down and polyester filling.
Chat Moss, where the trial is based, was originally part of one of the largest expanses of lowland raised peat bog in the UK, but was drained and converted to farmland more than 100 years ago. The trial field was increasingly waterlogged, proving almost impossible to achieve a viable crop of cereals, potatoes or vegetables.
As well as many of these areas of lowland drained agricultural peat becoming progressively unsuitable for crop production, draining the peatland releases stored carbon into the atmosphere, exacerbating the climate emergency, as well as destroying habitat for a lot of special peatland species.
However, bulrushes are the perfect crop to plant on boggy land. Often found growing naturally along the edge of ponds and other wet areas, they don’t struggle in wetter conditions.
Steve, who farms the land which is owned by Peel L&P says: “It’s been exciting seeing the harvest after all of the work that’s gone into getting here. There’s still more learning to do, but it’s a great start.”
It’s hoped that by using machinery to harvest the crop, the time and manpower to process the bulrushes will be reduced, keeping costs down for the farmer and customer.
Economic impact
Another aspect of the trial is understanding the economic impact of wetter farming – to make sure it benefits the farmer. This includes investigating uses for the other parts of the bulrushes such as the stems and leaves, to maximise the income and reduce waste.
Mike Longden, technical lead for the project says next steps will be looking at increasing the trial from field-scale to farm-scale, as well as increasing the yield on existing wetter farming crops and continuing trialling the harvesting technique.
