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Mastering crop value chains from seed propagation to processing, and everything in between.
We only publish a crop once we have grown it, advised on it, or worked a supply chain around it. That is a slow way to build a database and it is the only way we are willing to build one, because a guide written from a textbook is worth nothing at four in the morning in a wet field.
Every season adds a few more. Some come from our own trials, some from farms that ask us to solve something and teach us in the process, and some from processors who need a crop they cannot yet source reliably.
Growing something that isn't here yet? Tell us about it. Crops we are asked about repeatedly are the ones we take on next.
See our workEvery crop we work with, from field crops to aquatic and controlled-environment production.
Short write-ups of jobs we have taken on. Most turned out to be about handling, timing or who the buyer is rather than about growing.
Photographs from the farms, ponds and processing rooms we work in.
Pick the one closest to your enquiry. If you work with several, choose the main one and tell us the rest in step three.
One to start with. We can cover more in the meeting.
A few sentences is plenty. Scale, location, where you are stuck, what you want out of the meeting.
0 characters — about 40 more
Enough to put a meeting in the diary. Nothing else.
When suits you for a call?
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Prefer to write it yourself? admin@thecropguide.com
Would rather talk it through first, or your crop isn't on the list? Reach us directly and we'll take it from there.
Inquire nowPick a crop to read its guide. Each covers where it grows, how to plant it, what the season asks of you, and how to get it off the farm without losing the value.
The Crop Guide began in 2026 as a set of notes passed between growers who were tired of advice written for commodity farming and applied, badly, to crops worth twenty times as much. Saffron is not wheat. A vanillery is not an orchard. The detail is the whole thing.
Everything here is drawn from our own blocks and from the farms we advise, then checked against local trial data before it goes on the page. Where we are unsure, we say so. Where a crop is a bad idea on your land, we would rather tell you now than sell you a plan.
Free to read, free to pass on. That was the point of starting.
A few of the jobs we have taken on. Most of them turned out to be about handling, timing or who the buyer is rather than about growing.
Short write-ups of jobs we have taken on. Filter by crop, or scroll the row.
What we are building, trialling or looking for partners on. Several of these have room for a grower group or a processor to come in early.
In trialDragon fruit
Two trial plots are in the ground to establish whether dragon fruit is viable at scale on low-rainfall land, and what the real cost of trellising works out at per hectare.
First data expected late 2027
BuildingMushroom
Clean grain spawn is the constraint on every mushroom grower we work with. We are setting up a small lab so groups can buy known, uncontaminated spawn locally instead of importing it.
Commissioning in 2027
Seeking partnersTurmeric
Buyers increasingly pay on curcumin percentage rather than weight. A shared testing point would let growers be paid on measured quality instead of a flat rate.
Looking for a processing partner
ScalingSoya beans
The collection and drying model that worked for our first grower groups is being extended, with two more drying points and a forward contract covering the combined volume.
Planting season 2027
In trialSeaweed
Ice-ice losses trace back to tired seed stock. A nursery holding healthy, fast-growing lines would give coastal growers somewhere to restart a plot from after a bad season.
Site selection underway
Early stageRed eye chillies
Growers are drying in the sun and losing a grade. A shaded, ventilated facility with grading at intake would move the whole group onto export specification.
Costing in progress
Interested in any of these? Tell us which one and we will let you know where it stands.
Photographs from the farms, ponds and processing rooms we work in.
The same questions come up whatever the size of the operation. The answers change.
Aggregation, shared processing, a single grading standard and one voice at the buyer's table.
Crop selection, planting plans, season agronomy and post-harvest systems built to a buyer's specification.
Reliable supply: sourcing, grower training and quality control that holds batch after batch.
Crop feasibility, training curricula and extension material that growers actually use.
Want this kind of work on your farm? Tell us about it or look through the services.
Four steps, in the same order every time, so you always know what happens next and what it costs.
Six services, used on their own or together. Most growers start with one and add others once the first block is running.
Bringing scattered production together so it can be sold as one reliable lot.
Getting growers organised around a crop, and keeping them organised.
The numbers and conditions behind a crop before you commit land to it.
Moving the crop off the farm without losing its value on the way.
Clean, uniform planting material — the cheapest yield gain available.
A specialist walking your blocks through the season, not just at the start.
Tell us the crop and the service and we will come back with what it involves, what it costs and when we could start.
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Tell us where you are, what you have and what you're considering. A first conversation costs nothing and usually saves a season.
The more of this you can answer, the more useful the first reply will be.
Photographs of the block help more than you would think. Send them along.
Crops we are asked about repeatedly are the ones we take on next. Tell us what you are growing, or what you think we should be.