‘This is a robust recipe’: the experimental farm bucking the decline in UK birds

Allerton Project attracts abundant wildlife and its success can offers clues to reversing the sharp drop in populations Farmer Alastair Leake is standing in a field of sprouting winter wheat, pointing at his experiment.

One side was ploughed before planting, with green shoots breaking through neat rows of upturned soil. On the other, the crop was drilled directly into the earth, emerging through a messy carpet of “trash” – stems, stubble and crop residue from previous harvests. “When we’re watching to see where the…