In 1961, British scientists stopped farming a 4-hectare barley field and left it alone; 60 years later, it had turned itself into a complex native woodland

In 1961, researchers at Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire harvested a final crop of barley from a four-hectare agricultural plot known as Stocking Close, ploughed the soil and walked away. They did not plant a single tree, build a fence or protect young saplings with plastic tubes.

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