Cereals 2026 – it begins with the soil

Recently various Niab staff members headed to Oxfordshire and Diddly Squat Farm to drill oilseed rape (OSR) for Niab and various customers. As well as getting the first crops in the ground, the team dug a test pit to investigate the soil profile, ready for the popular Niab soil hole, and were finalising plans for the stand itself. The site is famous the world-over as Clarkson’s Farm from the Amazon Prime TV series and is hosting the Cereals event for the first time. 

Shaun Coleman is the Niab Trials Manager who oversees the management of Niab’s crop demonstration plots at Cereals, as well as plots for a few customers.

‘There are over 120 crop demonstration plots just on the Niab stand’ said Shaun, who was assisted in the OSR drilling by Sophie Johnson. ‘It’s always a challenge to get them right – whether that’s at previous sites in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire or further west, like here in Oxfordshire.

Shaun Coleman working on the Cereals site

‘We drilled and netted the OSR plots at the end of August. The soil was very dry, so, like most farmers currently, we’re hoping for some rainfall to get them going. I’ll be heading back over to the site from my base in Lincolnshire later this year to check on them and, sometime in late September/early October we’ll be drilling most of the plots on the stand. This includes all the autumn sown crops, including winter wheat, winter barley, winter oats and winter beans.’

Niab’s Head of Communications, Ros Lloyd, also went along to look at site: ‘It is always exciting to have a brand-new site for Cereals, especially with such a famous location as this. But there are challenges we need to overcome – it wouldn’t be Cereals without them!’

‘We’ve been doing a bit of filming on site here, and our stand’s location is in full view of the Diddly Squat Farm shop. Lots of the visitors have been looking over at us – hopefully they’re not too disappointed when they realise we’re none of the stars from the show!’

‘The soil hole is one of the most popular exhibits on our stand and potentially the whole event. We’ve come here today to dig a little test pit and investigate the soil profile a bit more.’

David Clarke is a Farming Systems Specialist, working at Morley in Norfolk. He is the man tasked with investigating Diddly Squat’s famous soil and working out how Niab will dig a soil hole here.

‘There’s a quite shallow topsoil profile, down to about 30 cm’ David explains. ‘With quite a high limestone stone content of around 40%. There is then a small subsoil layer and we hit the limestone at about 35-40 cm and this limestone is very solid. There are roots though penetrating through the pores in the limestone, which will help any crops to grow.’

‘We’re finalising the crops that we’ll grow on top on the soil pit now. We like to grow topical and typical crops that a farm with this soil profile might grow, it gives us more to talk about come June. So make sure you visit the Niab Soil Hole at Cereals 2025 and see it for yourself.

David Clarke digging the test soil pit

As we progress with the Cereals planning and preparation for 2026, we hope to bring you further news as to how this is going. Make sure you come and see our stand in June.