Country Life

Cutting the mustard

TO the uninitiated, the field in northern Cambridgeshire does not look very promising. I think, for a moment, it is full of weeds—3ft high, brown and raggedy. However, this plot in Thorney represents a minor miracle of British farming. The crop is Sinapis alba or white mustard and the 10 hectares (just under 25 acres) are in the process of being turned into about 25 tons of mustard seeds, which will be ground into a very fine powder before ending up in a pot of Colman’s.

James Burgess, who has been driving the vast Claas 780 Lexion combine harvester down the field, is on a break. He pops open one of the inch-long dried seed pods and six tiny seeds roll into his hand. We

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