Lancashire Kale Grower Reaps Rewards Of Regenerative Farming
Award-winning West Lancashire grower Chris Molyneux has transformed soil health and farm resilience through decades of regenerative farming innovation, resulting in a thriving speciality brassica business.
Molyneux Kale Company, which produces black, white, green, and purple kales, red and candy-striped chard, has added orange and purple cauliflowers to its portfolio this season.
The Ormskirk-based business combines established kale production with an expanding speciality brassica range, supplying chefs with colourful and distinctive produce.
However, the company’s regenerative approach to production is what has attracted recent attention, after successfully developing sustainable, regenerative vegetable production with measurable results.
Earlier this year owner and grower Chris Molyneux was named Soil Farmer of the Year in the annual competition jointly run by Farm Carbon Toolkit and Innovation for Agriculture, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).
The award recognises a regenerative farming journey spanning decades, initially driven by the challenges of growing vegetables on West Lancashire’s shallow, high-rainfall soils.
Key Changes Introduced
Today, 90% of the farm operates under a no-plough policy, with strip tillage in 24in rows, which suits the region’s shallow clay soils.
“Traditionally, we ploughed in the autumn and then tried to get on the ground to plant in the spring,” Molyneux explained.
“We have quite high rainfall here, and we were making a right mess of it – tractors getting stuck, all sorts of crazy stuff. And I was thinking ‘this doesn’t add up’.”
Questioning conventional practices, Molyneux started experimenting with minimum tillage on the cereal break crops.
“This was in the late 80s/early 90s and people thought I was cracked,” he said.
“But I was getting better crops, even on the clay brows where we’d never got anything to grow before.”
Now rotations have been extended to four or five years, with two or sometimes three years dedicated to leguminous cover crops to rebuild soil structure and provide green manure.
Molyneux has employed a simple philosophy: keep the soil covered, encourage natural soil processes, and let earthworms do much of the hard work.
“If it doesn’t have something growing in it, it’s not right,” he noted.
Improved Soil Health And Productivity
The approach is delivering measurable results.
Soil tests show improved potash retention, while cover crops and carefully managed green manure are helping to reduce nutrient losses from the farm’s free-draining sandy loam soils.
Furthermore, the business has started growing some kale crops without fertiliser, resulting in improvements to both quality and shelf life.
“We’re starting to understand how green manure can reduce the amount of conventional fertiliser we use across the rest of the acreage now,” explained Molyneux.
“By cutting the first cover crop at flowering (early June) you get loads of protein and nitrogen while still building fertility in the soil. If you take a second cut, you’re just making the clover work a bit harder.”
Improved soil structure has brought significant operational benefits too, particularly in an area receiving around 1,000ml of annual rainfall.
Better drainage means machinery can access fields sooner after rain, while healthier soils retain more moisture during dry periods.
“I would never be able to grow the acreage of kale I grow here conventionally because there wouldn’t be enough days in the year when I could get on to the crop,” Molyneux said.
“It works both ways: when you have rainfall events, you can get on to the land sooner, but the soil also holds more water when it’s dry.”
There have been environmental gains, too, with increases in farmland birds including corn buntings, skylarks, partridges, and lapwings.
“We’ve seen massive numbers of corn buntings, skylarks, partridges. I lost count of the lapwings,” he added.
“I put that down to having cover crops in early – that and the worms.”
Earthworm populations are now estimated at around 10 tonnes per acre.
Their activity has improved water infiltration, supported stronger root development, and helped to reduce flooding, run-off, and nutrient leaching.
“When I saw worms powering up through the cracks in the tramlines behind my tractor tracks, I couldn’t believe it. I was just made up with it,” Molyneux enthused.
“You can do all the soil tests, talk about biometrics, but worms demonstrate you’re doing the right things: you’re really making your soil viable.”
The success of the business demonstrates how innovation in crop production and soil management can go hand in hand.
For Chris Molyneux, the foundations of a resilient and productive vegetable business remain firmly beneath the surface.
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