WHEAT growers are harvesting the seeds of their success after landing one of the first awards from a fund set up by Prince Charles.

Heritage Harvest, together with the Oxford Bread Group, has won £25,000 – one of only six grants awarded to organisations nationwide which help preserve the biodiversity of Britain’s crops.

The Oxford-based company grows hundreds of varieties of organic wheat across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Many of these grains have not been grown in the UK for hundreds of years, and now their nutritional qualities are being rediscovered.

Heritage Harvest director John Letts said: “This grant is a godsend for us, and comes at a time when British farming is facing many challenges.

“Preserving the biodiversity of our crops is the key to food security in a period of climate change and it’s very important we pass on the knowledge of how to grow them to the next generation.”

The cash has been awarded by the Prince’s Countryside Fund, which opened for grant applications in December.

The Oxford Bread Group, also run by Mr Letts and his wife Sally Lane, is a co-operative enterprise.

It supplies flour for loaves baked at the Cornfield Bakery in Wheatley as well as local businesses.

Restaurants including The Vaults and Garden Café at St Mary’s Church in Oxford’s High Street buy the local flour and bake bread on their premises.

Will Pouget, director of the Vaults, has sponsored a field at Collings Hanger Farm, near Great Missenden, and plans to invite customers to take part in this year’s harvest.

Heritage Harvest also supplies wheat to local thatching firms.

Matt Williams, of the Rumpelstiltskin Thatching Company in Witney, said: “Wheat straw is sustainable, renewable, and meets the strictest insulation criteria.

“The Prince’s grant will invigorate the thatching industry by encouraging more farmers to grow these old varieties and improve the durability of our thatched roofs.”