Denis Adam and his family from “La petite ferme de Chanon” are yet another grower from the project. We are therefore happy to give you deeper insights on how an organic farm from France is cultivating wheat in the 21st century, combining both modern technology as well as animal traction.
Here is a general introduction of the farm as presented during the Global Draft Animal Congress in 2021:
The field chosen for wheat cultivation is located at 600 m above sea level and consists mainly of clay and limestone. The annual rainfall of the region in this case is between 1300 and 1600mm and therefore quite humid.
The plough used for soil preparation is a pre-war Dalloz plough. It was the smallest model of their range. They were made in Lons-le-Saunier, it's the prefecture of the Jura and it's only 20km away from the farm. It is therefore a very common plough of the region.
Denis Adam describes the further process after ploughing as following:
This time we used "gribolis". These are extirpators that were used in the past in the vineyards but that I find well adapted also for the fields because they weed well. Usually
a pass is made with a flat harrow to level the soil and prepare the seedbed. But this year
we didn't have time to do this and we had to make do with the griboli.
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