Growing Wheat For The First Time
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- It has been really interesting to growing wheat for the first time, with quite different needs while growing and quite labour intensive to harvest, thresh and clean. But is it worth it?
I used to assume that it would not be worth the effort to grow wheat at a small scale, but then I was given a batch of mixed seed as part of a really interesting seed saving project.
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We have a field behind our house where they plant wheat sometimes. I love sitting near it and listening to the wind. It sounds like the ocean.
Very cool indeed. I spent a fair amount of time watching and listening to this batch of wheat!
yeah can be very peaceful, and people that dont understand it will always mock it, no matter what it is, i love to garden and raise my own food, is it easier to go to the store, of course, just no where near as satisfying or relaxing,
Oh my it does it really does
Just let the chickens harvest and thresh it for you. They seem trustworthy.
They would certinally clean up the crop! I'd have lots of eggs, but no bread!
@@CharlesNauck Using it for chicken feed would definitely save a few steps. I could just throw in a bundle of cut plants every few days and t=let them scratch it all out. Depending on what else I am feeding them, it would take a lot of space to make a difference in their feed.
🤣🤣🤣
@@CharlesNauck ruclips.net/video/oAqoAgxXdyo/видео.html
@@REDGardens given the labor intense method of having to thresh this wheat it does seem logical to give it to the chickens. Calculating the math to say that you would only have 15 extra seeds at the end is bizarre.
You could look at this as energy per square meter, 1 pound of wheat = 1500 calories.
1 pound of most vegetables is between 50 & 90 calories.
1 pound of wheat = to 23 pounds of cucumbers
Don't look at it per pound. Consider it per acre. Also don't forget to compute the calories in the wheat beer you will make (far better than veggie beer, imo).
@@VACatholic Yes you are correct, on the farm the metric used is tonnage per acre.
@@michaelbalfour3170 Yah exactly! I think @aaron mann's idea of using calories is totally awesome. It just needs to be converted from calories / pound into calories / acre. Then it'd be a sweet little metric for people looking to ensure they're growing a good human garden not just a good "garden". At least, if they're into that kinda thing... :)
@@VACatholic Yes I agree its a good idea and probably really easy to carry out too using the resources on the internet.
Now I haven't slept in a while and realistically even if I was 100% rested I'm not really that good at maths, so either run the numbers for yourself or take my numbers with a grain of salt.
100 grams of wheat is 210(bran)-350(literally everything but bran)kcal, cucumber is 14kcal per 100 gram. 1ha of wheat is roughly 4-5 ton, while the same size plot of cucumber would yield 80-100 ton. Picking a number right in the middle of the yield range would give 9,450,000,000-15,750,000,000kcal per ha of wheat and 12,600,000,000kcal per ha for cucumber. Comparatively that would be -3,150,000,000kcal to +3,150,000,000kcal per ha depending on what you do with your wheat. But those numbers are a bit ridiculous, so lets take it down to kcal per square meter instead. 945,000-1,575,000kcal for wheat per square meter, and 1,260,000kcal per square meter for cucumber or -315,000 to 315,000kal difference per square meter.
Those numbers are still dumb, so lets make an assumption that you aren't making bran and wheat and cucumbers just became super foods which contain all your needs so they are all you need to eat. A square meter of wheat would feed an average adult male for 787,5 days(2 years, 1 month, and 26,5 days) while a square meter of cucumbers would feed the same dude for 630 days(1 year, 8 months, and 21 days).
I would be inclined to think that the average harvest of a ha and a square meter for cucumber don't really scale quite as linearly as wheat would, but maybe that's just me mentally trying to optimize plant patterns. I'd also think when you get down to such small measurements you could start thinking about growing the cucumbers on trellises which would increase the yield per square meter as they would need less ground space which would probably equate to about .5 plants or something. But ultimately all of this is meaningless since we don't use wheat and cucumber the same way so it's a bit of apples and oranges(though that idiom doesn't really work in this context as apples and oranges would make much more sens to compare compared to wheat and cucumbers).
edit: reread what I wrote and the first bit sounded a bit harsher then intended to changed it to hopefully sound a bit nicer. But now bed.
This is EXACTLY what I've been thinking of doing! I make my own sourdough and have a little mill and grind wheat. Australia is a great wheat growing country too, so following your experience, I will definitely try it. There are some vids on RUclips where people use old food processors for threshing and all kinds of other equipment to process the grain, which could make it less labour intensive. I loved your hen cleaner-uppers too!! GREAT video!!
Cool, glad to hear there are others thinking of small scale grain growing. I have seen a number of different threshing/cleaning options like that as well. One of the ones I tried was a chain on a threaded rod attached to a drill used to bash the grain heads in a bucket - basically the same principle as a food processor. I'm thinking of growing about 4 times as much next year, so will definitely need to figure out how to streamline it all.
RED Gardens I reckon I'd be going with just one variety though, for the reason you showed regarding the stem lengths. Can't wait to see your wheat crop next year Bruce. (Also, it's very difficult to make bread entirely with your own milled grain. You need to add in some refined bakers flour or the bread is just too heavy and wont rise). This was a terrific vid!
I am going to work with my baker friend who is well skilled at making 100% wholemeal flour, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. The big issue is if there is high enough protein content to produce a light(ish) loaf.
@@REDGardens
VERY GOOD EXPLAIN
Very excellent growing design
I'm finding it hard to work out what you expect to grain from this.
'grain' - nice one
:) Seriously though, 10 loaves from that small an area is actually a good yield!
Big fan of rye bread here especially as you can't get it in the stores that easily, would recommend having a go at that at some point, a 50/50 mix of rye/wheat works well.
Also I'd be very interested in watching the grinding process if you ever did make bread!
10 loaves does seem an ok amount, especially given that the grain is so storable - and high calorie.
I am going to work with my baker friend to bake a few 100% local loaves of bread - which will be interesting, and I am planning to film it all. He has the grinder, beautiful oven and the experience to make great bread.
Make whiskey so your clownass can get some sleep. Lol
Hi there, love the channel, just wanted to point a few things out,that may help you going forward. Your seeding density was more than twice what is considered ideal, approximately 90kg depending on species is closer to the mark in standard agricultural planting density of wheat. It is possible that there was over competition for what is a nitrogen heavy consuming crop
I did this a few years ago. I found it easier to just cut off and reserve the heads in a pair of old pillow cases, and just rolled my car back n forth a few times to loosen and separate all the hulls . . . then I just poured the result in front of a strong fan and into a pail, with the chaff getting blown away.
Sounds like an effective option.
Even though the plot was tiny (2' x 8'), and only yeilded about a pint or so of finished wheatberries, experiencing the whole process for the 1st time, from sprouted seed to baked goods, was deeply satisfying.
Oh, and I forgot to explain that the pillowcase of wheat heads was placed on my driveway with the bag spread evenly flat (not mounded) before rolling my car back n forth several times across it. It was just the right amount of force to crack open all the hulls without damaging the wheatberries themselves. I think I used Palouse Hard Spring White Wheat.
So amazing to see. This is the grain of my region, Swartland here in South Africa. Your methods were pretty creative and effective imo.
Thanks. Great to hear from someone in South Africa!
@@REDGardens well love from india
Thanks for this, as usual a very thoughtful analysis. I have wanted to do our own wheat for a while but we just do not have the space. The upside to being able to grow you own wheat is avoiding all the pesticide and fertilizer exposure that come with store bought grain products.
That is definitely an upside!
Checking every day for a new video
Ah, sorry for the delay! Just uploaded another video. So cool to know people are anticipating new videos on this channel! Thanks!
Thanks for the video. When I did the search for growing wheat all the videos showed the "big scale" process. Your video it was just what I was looking for.
Love the way you speak brother thanks for the detailed information👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
Thank you for making this video. Diolch.
My wife gets itchy bumps on her neck then I know it's a good time to plant wheat. It will be a good crop for sure that year.
Planting whole loaves is smart. That will save on a lot of processing and baking
Love the closing footage
🙂
Rolling the stalks on wire rack was brilliant. I'll be giving that a try, thanks.
It works, though not necessarily the easiest method. I suspect the drill with chains in a bucket method that I have seen others use is a better option.
@@REDGardens With being in Ireland. It should be one of the easiest of tasks. To obtain an old washing mangle. Feed the straw into the rollers as you turn the handle. The wheat grains will drop out automatically as the straw and rollers gets nearer to the seed heads. Then winnow it. How can you tell my Grandmother on my Mother's side was Irish.and from County Cork ? There's not a problem you can't solve. If you just think about it first. As for doing the washing. The wife won't miss the mangle for five minutes. If you're quick. I've been thinking of growing my own for the last two years. So maybe next year I'll eventually get around to it.
@@REDGardens Drill holes in the bottom of your bucket first. For the wheat to drop through. Less winnowing later.
This a wonderful new project.
Wheat has no long hairs,
I don't know anyone else who grows grain on a personal level. This is very interesting! Have you read "The One-Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka? His method of growing rice (also some wheat and rye) involved not-flooded fields, direct-seeding, and no-dig. He returned all chaff and straw to the field where it was grown, scattering it across the top randomly, where it acted as a mulch for the next crop. He grew two kinds of grain in every field every year, for example seeding rice to grow over summer, then when harvested its straw becomes the mulch for the rye crop he would grow over winter in the same field. And then the rye straw becomes the mulch for the next rice crop. In this way he increased the humus/topsoil of his fields by several inches over a number of decades.
I'm sure you would enjoy that book if you can find a copy. Parts of it are very philosophical, or poetic, not just technical. I like the artwork too.
The One-Straw Revolution has been on my bookshelf for ages, though it has been a long time since I last read it. Such wonderful and inspiring stuff, and an example of someone developing an integrated system for producing food using unconventional methods. One thing that i have noticed, or actually noticed by its absence, that a lot of people have been so inspired by his work, yet i don't know anyone who is following his methods or have adapted them to their context. And I wonder why this is. I have read others speculate that his fields are on naturally rich volcanic soils, with water flowing down from the hillsides through the topsoil and subsoil of his fields, bringing steady supplies of fresh fertility direct to the plant roots (similar to how the flooding nile river sustained the Egyptian civilisation for thousands of years.) If that was the case it would be a considerable advantage not available elsewhere, and definitely not in my gardens! But there is still lots to learn from him, including his no-dig approaches with seed bombs.
It is really pleasant watching wheat grow and blow in the wind. I grow it primarily as a cover crop however every year I make a few loaves out of it. To get the wheat kernels out of the head I drop the heads into a Sun Joe leaf mulcher. That whips the seeds loose from the chaff. I use a fan to winnow as the wind is unpredictable. With regards to competing with big growers, it isn't necessary. Simply enjoy the experience and the quality of the grain.
I also love watching the wheat flow in the wind, I want to plant a larger area just for that! If you grow it mainly as a cover crop, do you only harvest some of the grain, or what happens with the grain that isn't harvested? the leaf muncher sounds like a good option.
I primarily use it as a cover crop. I let it grow to maturity and harvest it. Out of the harvested grain my grandson and I milled enough to make a few loaves of bread. The rest I kept and sowed this fall in a bigger stretch, 100 feet by 30 feet. It is well up now due to the very mild fall. Hope it won't set it back when harsh weather comes.
I started experimenting with oats and rye a year ago as backup animal feed that I can grow over winter. It's pretty and it provides a sense of security along with the buckwheat I grow every autumn. I have no interest in processing grain all the way to bread. I'm sure those who do get a fine understanding of how amazing modern mechanization is.
Growing for feed is a lot easier, especially if you can just let animals like chickens into the grain growing area, to eat anything that dropped to the ground.
This is great.
I am also very interested in growing grain once I have the land to do so on.
Thank you.
Hope you get a chance - it is such an interesting process and beautiful crop.
Bro....you broke every down in this video so thoroughly, great job!! Question, what do you use to grind the seeds down to flour?
Thanks. My baker friend used his grain mill to grind the flour.
Thinking about doing this once I get a small farmhouse. I already make my own dough from store bought flour, would be nice to take it a step farther.
It is really great to be able to experience the entire process, even if it is only for a small part of what you use.
I like to grow wheat in my garden as an ornamental plant. I cut them at the end of the year and use them in fall displays :)
Good idea, they are such beautiful plants.
Thank you for this video, this is the exact information I was looking for yield vs sqm and yield vs seed and as a bonus sqm = (x) loaves.
Glad it was helpful!
I appreciate you man!!!
It’s super awesome how you blaze trails for other DIYers - super impressive and impeccably beneficial. 🙏🏼
As a child, my grandfather would bind wheat into sheaves with a horse drawn binder, they where then set up on groups of 10 to 12 leaving space so air could dry the grain, a sheave was placed over the top in such a way as to place the straw or butts facing the prevailing wind. To see if the wheat was ready to thrash, a few heads where rubbed between the hands, if the chaff came off easily and the grain was firm it was further tested by eating it and if crunchy but would form like a gum without to much effort it was ready. Sometimes we would use a flail, two straight branches one 4 feet long and the other 3 feet long tied together with a leather cord and then beat the stocks on a tarp. After the grain had fallen off the straw was raked off and then it was tossed into the air, grain falling to the tarp and chaff blowing away. Hope you liked growing wheat, non gmo is great to make whole wheat and multi grain sour dough or plain bread. Which can be cooked in a dutch oven over a fire.
I remember being something very similar while visiting one of those historical villages with everyone doing all the old tasks. It is such a wonderful process, all the stages with specific purposes, techniques and equipment.
I'm looking forward to making some sourdough bread from this!
9
Thanks
Composting wheat with bread. How cannibalistic! :D
Yeah, a bit strange, but seems to work!
@LagiNaLangAko23 Lol
trees eat fermemted leaves too
@@sapprine4534 True!
You can boil the grains without turning them in to flour and bake the bread.
Something akin to boiled rice will show up. An esible, but bland without salt food.
I love baking bread, and the idea of planting an intermixed variety and letting the local climate select for the most suitable is very appealing. I've got more land than I can use for my vegetable garden, and I have let large portions of it turn to meadow. I think you may have inspired me to try wheat for next season. Plus, I don't feel compelled to build raised beds for grains!
I think wheat and other grains are a really suitable option for those larger areas of ground that we don't know what to do with.
Glad to hear you have been inspired to try out growing wheat!
This video answered all my questions I had about growing wheat. Thank you. Its channels like this that we need more of
15 pounds on 1/200 of an acre is something like ~50 bu/acre (i think it is 60 lbs/bu). That is a good yield today, and if you were roman. Interestingly, bu/ac is the modern way of looking at things, it used to be the ratio of harvest to seed. (You did great there too for wheat. I think the famines in early 14th century europe occured when yields dropped to 2:1 from 6:1. )
Superb video.
I was thinking of the same idea but maybe finer mesh for processing. And then having fans blowing under it, positioned the right distance away, to blow the chaff away but leave the wheat berries to fall.
A fan would definitely make it easier, as the inconsistency of the wind is a hassle.
well done
thanks
Very interesting and informative, as a person who was looking to understand more about how wheat is grown. Maybe it's something I could try to grow someday.
🙂
Watch out for ergot. Also, unless you actively select the best ears of wheat for next year's crop, your landrace may be quite a bit inferior to the various strains you're sowing now.
I have a lot to learn about wheat, especially the diseases. It will be interesting to see how this seed saving approach evolves over time. I might also select the best seeds from the biggest ears from part of next years' batch - to have two patches to compare - though that adds to my work!
@@REDGardens Hi there, I enjoyed the video and as a worker on a grain farm I may have some info that can help. If you are worried about ergot, avoid rye as the ear is open which means that ergot can enter easily and grow. Its a fungus so mycelium is present, meaning it would be smart to destroy any plants that shows signs of it rather than try to salvage. On my farm we don't worry about ergot, even when its organic as it is uncommon but keep an eye on your crop anyway.
@@michaelbalfour3170 thanks for the info.
@@REDGardens your welcome, just be sure and check the colour of your grains, anything suspect beware.
Ergot ?
Thank you. I share the same with.Hope more video clips on wheat from you.Only at 71 of age could be a little helpful to engage in own consumption growing and farming .🤔I dislike chemicals laden foodstuff produced commercially by big companies.
Hi, I know this is an old video but I'd love to know where you got the seed for the wheat population from. I'm in Scotland and am considering growing wheat at a slightly larger scale and would love to grow from a population. If the population you grew was developed in Ireland I'd be interested to hear - it might well be be better suited for my conditions than others
I used to work at a small scale wheat farm in Scotland. I would recommend asking a farmer of a small wheat farm.
Wow the yield is great ! What weather condition and type of soil do you think wheat grows best in ?
Rather than burring the bread, would it be better to pen the chickens over the plot and feed them the stale bread?
That could have been an option. In that case some of the fertility n the bread would have gone into the chicken poop, but a lot of it would end up in the eggs, which we would have eaten, which is a great extra value yield, but probably less available to the crop of wheat. Now, if the hens were also fed lots of other things while on the bed, then that would be a good approach.
Wheat is also a great cover crop, its a good crop to grow when starting a bed for a new plant.
I'm in Cumbria, and have notice the price of bread jumping up substantially. With the war in Eastern Europe and climate challenges in the US and Canada, wheat's potentially going to be harder to source. I was with friends last night who grow most of their food as I do, and we reckoned it's time to look at growing our own bread. Thankyou for your insights and starting our journey into this.
I was thinking of growing some more next year, for similar reasons.
A scythe would be nice for anything slightly larger but not too large
I was worried about making a mess if I used my scythe - which I am not very skilled at using yet.
@@REDGardens practice on field grass to get the method down
A few of those picks showed Barley not Wheat !
I love your commentary you are awesome thanks bro.
Subscribed!!!!!!
So .. how many square meters did you end up growing this (2019) year?
About 50-60m2 of the mixed wheat - 3 times what I grew last year.
Thanks. Great video
You my friend earned a new subscriber 🫡
Thanks!
Thank you for the great video. I've been thinking of growing wheat for a while, only problem being that I live in county Fermanagh! I wonder how well does wheat grow on boggy soil?
Thanks. I have no experience with boggy soil, but it might be worth trying to grow a small patch.
Might try rice too.
ive been watching a few videos on growing various grains as im interested to try growing some supplumental feed for my quail. I see a lot of people using two buckets and it made me wonder if a leaf blower pointed into a (Clean & dedicated) cement mixer could tumble seperate the chaff and wheat berries.
You got nearly 6kg from 20 square meters?
I was expecting 6kg from 40 square meters for this year, my first season of growing wheat. (I'm planting spring wheat in 2022)
If I harvest 12kg wheat this fall I'll be very happy, especially since wheat is going to be very expensive in early 2023.
It seems that any wheat would be nice!
Please do not use your cutlass and cut off top of grass. Please to continue to water until fresh and green. Do not allow it to dry. It will spring back.
Not sure I understand. This wheat naturally goes brown and dries, regardless of the water.
How fast can grow
Great video and a cool experiment! An important take-away is that growing grains, even when not producing as well as large scale commercial agriculture, requires much less space than most people think. Ask most people and they assume you need acres and acres to grow a few pounds.
Thanks. It is interesting how much you can get. And I extrapolated to figure out how much space I would need to grow enough grain for 2 loaves of bread a week for the full year, and it seems reasonable and manageable.
Very interesting video. There is very little information about small scale wheat growing and processing, due to fact that (as you mention) vegetables are easier with less processing. But small scale wheat growing is something I want to try in rotation with poultry as soon as I have the space available. Great to have the details and information on yield you have given here. Thank you!
Thanks. Grains are so interesting - so much to learn and explore about growing them on a small scale.
Hello! Are you planning to sow some wheat this year? I have ordered springwheat from my local garden store and will use an area of 12 square meters for wheat this year. If it turns out well I will expand. Also a bread baker so the thought of baking with my own wheat is a dream.
I need so many more videos like this. I very much enjoy the intellectual dialogue in your videos. As an avid gardener it's very refreshing to stumble upon a channel like yours.
Thanks. Glad you found my channel.
The best wheat is Soviet varieties. The Russian steppes and Caucasus are world renound for their wheat
That’s a lot of stale bread. Did you get it from your baker friend? It is always the case for me that when I’ve gone through the effort to grow something myself, seeing it ‘go to waste’ is always hard for me. Obviously it’s not going to complete waste, but it’s not being eaten, which always hurts my soul a little bit when I’ve grown it myself...
What camera did you use to record this video? The quality is great!
Were you looking to grow new varieties or old traditional ones? I have been thinking about older more basic varieties due to many have lost their nutritional value and aren't as good as they once were. They are cultivated to produce more not better in a lot of cases. Try Rye sometime.
Six inches from my left elbow is a book called 'Growing Wheat on a Small Scale'. There's a long story attached to this book.
Ps
For two autumns recently, I broadcast sowed a Winter Green Manure mix of Grazing Rye and Winter Tares.
Your lovely video encourages me to let that grow to maturity some day.
Please grow a big field of grains this season
great video. I have been growing grains all my life and small plot varieties for almost twenty years.
Very informative video. My students want to ask few questions from you can we have live session?
Thanks. A live session would be very cool, what type is students/school? I am not sure if the bandwidth can handle it, depends on time of day over here I think. Where are you located?
@@REDGardens I'm the employee of Beaconhouse School System Pakistan. I want to invite you through Hangout Meet so for that I would be needing you email ID to send you invite. Pakistan is 4 hours ahead from Ireland so if I schedule the meeting at 1:00 p.m, would it be convenient for you to join?
43.1 bushels per acre. That's less than commercial yields, but not terrible. Since the video is a couple of years old, I'm sure this has been gone over, but I'll point out a couple of things I didn't see mentioned:
1. Even choosing a mix of varieties, it's probably best to be uniform by type. Mixing winter wheat and spring wheat could be a problem, for example, and you would like to have uniform suitability for purpose, i.e., use all hard or all soft varieties.
2. Regarding space, if you choose winter wheat that's less of a problem. You'll be able to harvest in late spring or early summer and should still have enough time to use the space for other crops. If you normally have unused space you're just planting a cover crop in, then winter small grains are an option for getting some additional yield from that space.
So when are you going to try some hops ? Paul needs some beer .
Only just saw this comment - hops aren't in the plans for now, but perhaps in a few years.
The traditional method is to remove the grain from the chaff, it by threshing, you put the wheat in old pillowcases and beating on it with a flail, then you use a fork and later sieves to seperate the straw, after that you do wind winnowing, similar to what you did, but with special equipment, either a large flat bowl or even better a woven winnowing fan, a skilled person can remove all chaff and almost all dust, while loosing almost no good grain.
The process is obviously a lot more effective with the equipment, multiple people and everyone having experience with it, in my school we did that a few times during autumn, it is labour intensive, but not as much as what you did, we also used a scythe to harvest and had around 2000m^2 spelt, which took us about one afternoon to harvest and process to clean grain, with 12-15 children(age 9-13) and 2 adults.
I would.like to test plant wheat in Ghana which happens to be a Tropical area. Can you help with the exact time of the year you planted the Wheat and also the temperature when you planted .
I have ordered some seeds and looking forward for more ideas as to how I can start it. Thank you
With such different climates I think my planting dates would be inappropriate for you, but I planted in the beginning of March. Hope you have a good crop.
i'm sure you know that wheat is a heavy feeder. it is historical to rotate wheat, or grain, after a legume crop. but the crop looks so good i'm sure you'll get a very hardy specimen when you're done.
I have heard that about wheat. i added some concentrated fertility to the soil (chicken manure pellets) prior to sowing though not sure what difference it made.
Nice rich looking soil. Can you buy unground wheat for baking and plant It? Seems to be the same .
I am not sure. It may produce something, but it is unlikely tat the variety from the shop is suitable for your climate.
So when are we going to see the loafs you made with your wheat ? Pity we will not get to try them.
Waiting until things calm down a bit, then Joe and I are going to make a few loaves, and I'm planning a video about it all.
very interesting. just amazing how yield rates varies from country to country. Here in Australia, we'd be VERY lucky to get 3t/ha on a commercial farm. Usually it ranges from 1.5-2t/ha. Couldn't even fathom getting up to 8t/ha like they do on those varieties in Ireland
It is amazing how yields vary. Here in Ireland we don't have a lot of land, but have high yields. In Australia, you have lots of land, but not as high of yield, so I guess that is an ok balance. I heard somewhere that Ireland has among the highest grain yields in the world, but the wheat is so soft it isn't valued for making bread. Most of it goes to animal feed apparently.
No offense man but you look like the Ark survival evolved default character
Awesome!
What is semolina?
Bleached later. The flour. How is the process of bleaching?
I don’t know.
I have been growing wheat all my life. 8 ozs of Urea would have fertilized your plot. You went to a lot of trouble for almost nothing! Sometimes the truck driver will forget to check if the hopper is still open after the last load. The grain cart driver starts unloading at 500 lbs per second, before he can stop the wheat lost can cover your plot almost an inch deep. Man, wheat is cheaper than dirt on the farm! The wheat is too cheap to pay labor for picking it up in the field.
Fair point, though I am not really doing it for economic reasons.
Your wheat looks nice! I have been thinking about a cereal staple too for quite some time, but for some reasons as a gardener would favor corn over wheat. I recently read the book "The Resilient Gardener" by Carol Deppe, and she highly recommended growing Roy's Calais flint corn or Abenaki flint corn for the very cool regions. It is said to be an outstanding polenta corn and was the only grain cereal to produce a yield in the 1816 "year without a summer". I wonder if this might be of interest for your project as an experiment. According to this Mother Earth News article www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/garden-planning/staple-crops-zm0z13jjzsto corn and potato are top ranking for calories produced per growing area. For getting the kernels off the cob and grinding polenta, there are cheap and durable hand tools available. It could even be grown in a three sisters garden.
I would love to be able to grow corn here, it is just so cool most summers. But perhaps that variety would grow well here.
Thanks for making this video. I was thinking for a while if I can grow some small amounts of wheat, enough to bake a few loaves of bread. I had grown a few wheat plants in the past and I found them really beautiful and pleasant.
You should really try to grow a small patch - it is wonderful to have it in the garden!
That is why grains were historically NEVER fed to livestock before the industrial revolution, too much energy to produce and separate... Large scale commercial industrial grain and grass farms are relatively less damaging to nature too because they require less fertility and grow on a wide variety of soils, compared to say potatoes, soy, and corn (which is a grain I believe, but heavy feeder.)
Good point about the grains not being fed to livestock - it does take a lot of work.
Im really glad you decided to experiment and more importantly you shared your finds and the figures you came up with give a great framework to start with . being the first video ive seen i appreciate the way you included your sq ft and figures , great overall video i picked up a lot . thank you
😀
Yes, harvesting the grain is a chore. I have a bucket of Cereal Rye sitting on my living room floor. Without an machine the grain will never be harvested:-(
It is a difficult issue. I figure if I don't get around to cleaning it enough to make bread, I can always feed it to the hens, who don't mind the chaff!
The beauty of wheat is so pleasant! I also really love colorful corn, any corn really, and sweet sorghum...I had 12-14 foot stalks this year they were super sweet to chew. I grew corn, wheat, and sorghum while I was visiting Ireland, the sorghum took off during our drought back home. The corn did pretty well, but the wheat was overtaken this year by weeds. The best heritage wheat in Maine is Red Fife, so I hear. Very beautiful reddish golden seeds. I would add you get the value add of well-fed chickens and meat & eggs from the spilled wheat...that's a real win!
It is a lovely crop to grow, and I would really like to grow a lot more of the other grains. Such interesting crops.
lovely video, thanks for your time and effort
How many days to harvest from start planting?
I sowed this batch at the end of March, and harvested in mid August - so about 130-140 days.
PERFECT video for what I was needing answered!! I have not grown wheat .. yet? But I was looking for a reasonable answer to how much yield is possible for 1 lb planted!!
Hi . I have a question does a grain of wheat have to die before it grose again.
One plant produces seeds of, then the seed produces another plant the following year, that dies off. The seed itself is not dead, just dormant (a type of deep hibernation), barely alive and waiting for the moisture and right conditions to start again. Hope that answers your question.
Awesome information! Thank you for sharing!
This is why "America The Beautiful" talks about amber waves of grain. I'd rate a rolling field of wheat up as being just as pretty as a seascape or mountain vista.
5.8kg of wheat is surprisingly good. That is almost a bushel per 100sqm.
Trench composting bread seems like such a waste/bad idea. Feed bread to chicken to help with meat and egg production and then they make chicken manure for garden. Trench composting would be an option if no animals but trench composting bread would attract lots of unwanted vermin more so than trench composting vegetables. E.g roaches
so paddy is more efficient than wheat ? in my country avarege yield(paddy) is 8000kg/hectare and three time crops a year ....
Can you grow on top of what you just harvested? Can you make pasta with this process?
Great content, we haven't bought a loaf coming up to 3 yrs now I'd say, slicing is the hardest part :) malted fruit bread, yum yum, look forward to bakery/processing video, the idea of growing my own wheat has been on my mind obviously, well done, Thumbs up!
Thanks. Planning to do a video about baking a few loaves with my baker friend.
Thanks for posting this video. I have tested growing Khorasan Wheat a few times. The plants get very tall. If i get some time this year I will grow it again and rotate it with rice and try out a Masanou Fukuoka Style of No dig growing with a clover. I would love to get some bread out of my home grown wheat. Please get us posted about your next wheat sowing project. Thanks!!
It would be really colt try out rice with Fukuoka Style growing, but I'm afraid we don't have the climate here. Hoe it goes really well for you.
Someone gave me a bunch of wheat on stalks. Don't know if they'll grow in the tropics. So, to grow the seeds it need to be pounded first?
Does anyone know how it works with creating a single breed of wheat from multiple seeds? Do you just keep replanting?
where do you get the seeds to plant the wheat? I can not seem to find any to purchase? Loved the video. I have been thinking of doing this myself and was very interested in the process. Thank you
the result of my experience of master in Algeria in plastic farm 80000 kg in Hr but in the open farm i didnt try
I would like to grow wheat just for the straw. Most straw here is sprayed with herbicide.