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

• The four-hectare barley field was abandoned in 1961 after researchers harvested its final crop, allowing nature to take over without further human intervention.
• 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.