Winter Stubble
Jessica Stewart’s area of research

Winter stubble is the corn stubs left behind after a field has been harvested. Instead of ploughing the stalks in, the farmer leaves the field stubble through the winter and it will remain fallow during the spring and summer.

Often today’s fields are ploughed and sown in the autumn as soon as they are harvested which means there is no spilt grain lying between the cut stalks for wildlife to feed on through the winter.

Many birds feed on the winter stubble grain and weed seeds including yellowhammers, game birds, finches and skylarks. Winter stubble has attracted more roe deer to Hunting hall, brown hares live here and small mice.

So you can see that winter stubble is very useful for wildlife, and provides homes and food for little animals and birds.