Autumn in the Cornish Farmyard KS1

Autumn is when we celebrate the harvest and say thank you for our food.

Years ago everyone on the farm and all their neighbours would come to help gather in the grain harvest. The children even stayed home from school to help.

They needed plenty of horsepower to pull the reaping machine that cut the crop, and plenty of manpower to gather it into bundles.  These bundles or ‘sheaves’ then had to be threshed to separate the grain from straw.

Nowadays the combine harvester does the whole job.

Activity

Wheat is grown to make flour, with which we make bread, biscuits and cakes.

Wheat is also used to feed animals. Much of the wheat grown in Cornwall is used to feed cattle.

The wheat grains are crushed before they are fed to cows. Crushing the wheat makes it easier for the cows to digest. The work is very dusty.

Activity

Straw is used as bedding for farm animals in the winter.

Straw is the stem of cereal crops like wheat or barley. Once the grain has been harvested, the straw is baled and stacked in the barn.

The straw is baled in different quantities. Small rectangular bales are light, about 25kg, and can be carried by hand.

Small dog on small bale.

The big round bales are much heavier, about 150 kg. They have to be lifted and carried by a tractor.

Small dog on big round bales.

Farmers in Cornwall need more straw than is grown here. In autumn, you will see big lorries on the roads into Cornwall, bringing straw from areas of the country where more cereal crops are grown.

This straw is packed in huge rectangular bales that weigh up to 500kg each.

These heavy bales are loaded straight on to the lorry in the field where they were harvested.

Activity