Farmers needn’t be reminded of the wet autumn we experienced in 2019, and with seed shortages likely for spring planting, the good news is Cope Seeds is geared up to meet your organic spring seed orders. Hear the latest industry update from Gemma Clarke…

“The wet autumn has put farming on hold, causing delays across the country. Thankfully, spring is coming, and Cope Seeds is prepared with impressive amounts of seeds in many organic varieties.

Back in the Autumn of 2012/2013 I remember a wise old man (Trevor Cope), tell me…  ‘This is a very unusual year, one I have not seen in my life and one I don’t believe I will see again’. However here we are again only 7 years later experiencing an even wetter Autumn with one Lincolnshire farmer telling me he didn’t pick up a seed drill in the whole of 2019.

Thankfully farmers are made of strong stuff and will weather what comes their way through constantly adapting and learning. With Autumn plantings down, attention turns to spring and along with a higher level of unexpected spring planting comes the potential of seed shortages.

Organically we are quite well geared up to service this shortage and have in fact seen some merchants purchase organic wheat to supply their conventional customers! We are also heavily importing seed from the continent to meet the conventional demands which are coming in at a heavy price due to currency differences compared to 2012/2013.

As it stands we are able to offer the following organic varieties:

Spring Wheat: Mulika

Spring Barley: Laureate, Westminster, Evelina and Sienna

Spring Oats: Delfin, Yukon and Canyon

Spring Triticale: Conventional Untreated Somtri Only

Spring Beans: LG Cartouche, Victus & Fanfare. Please note, the Fanfare will be derogated seed whereby minimum germination standards have been reduced from 80% to 70% due to low availability and standard of bean seed across the industry

Spring Peas: Eso

A range of Arable Silage Mixtures

A wide range of Grass Seed, Cover Crops and Environmental Stewardship Mixtures”