Beginnings of a wheat landrace

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I have been trialing wheat varieties the past few years. I found 4 that are  productive enough to please  me.

Lofthouse. My great-great-grandfather's variety, developed on my farm.
Sin Et Pheel. An ancient variety from the middle east. Huge seed heads. Large kernels.
Huron Bluegrouse Bread Wheat.
Pacific Bluestem.

I'm growing two other varieties that I'm intending to include because of unique qualities.
Ethiopian Blue-tinged Emmer. Purple kernels. Very low productivity.
Tim Peter's perennial wheat.

And I will include Corsican wheat if I can find the seeds. Huge kernels.

My intention is to plant them on a grid, and then harvest by variety, and plant out rows of each variety, and watch for naturally occurring hybrids. Low humidity favors cross pollination in wheat, so that's encouraging since my climate is very arid. The seed head on Sin Et Pheel is uniquely distinctive. Ethiopian Blue-tinged Emmer has uniquely purple seeds.  Tim Peter's wheat has a unique seed head. So they might modify the phenotypes enough to be able to identify hybrids.

I might claim that I do plant breeding as an artist, but I still generated a randomized planting map for seven varieties. I'm planning for 6 plants of each variety, cause that matches the pots that I'm intending to grow the seedlings in. I'm planning to start 3 sets, 2 weeks apart, and planting them next to matching plants, in case flowering times are not synchronized.



Ethiopian Blue Tinged Wheat


Tim Peters Perennial Wheat


Sin Et Pheel ancient landrace wheat


Lofthouse heirloom wheat

[William S.]

I've been contemplating doing something similar. I have purple wheat from Eli Rugosa, Ethiopian blue tinge, lofthouse, Sin Et Pheel, Pima club (1 lb package), white sonoran, turkey red, a 1 gram packet of Einkorn and six grains of Khorasan wheat.

I had to go check my inventory.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I've been contemplating doing something similar.

I have been making seed increases for the grain trails. Sometimes I have had the same variety from different seed companies. I have noticed that with the same variety names, that some seed companies have done standardization selection on them, and some are phenotypically diverse and more akin to landraces. My propagation strategy has been to harvest all available seeds, regardless of phenotype. Then I combine the seeds from both seed companies into a common lot.

That has bothered me, because I so want to select against lodging, shattering, poor growth, miniaturization, etc. Now I can feel content about growing wheat, because I'm involved in a landrace breeding project. While my ancestor's wheat is sentimental, and cool as can be, it's still an heirloom, and that really isn't my passion.

[William S.]

 The methodology I was considering was mixing the seed together and sprinkling it out in a big patch. Or maybe using the beet plate on my seeder.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

My preferred method of growing grains, is in rows. I don't have the patience nor inclination to weed beds. It doesn't matter with my rye, cause the bindweed doesn't grow that tall. Most of the other grains that I grow are shorter than bindweed, so it makes harvest harder, and/or I have to spend more time cleaning seeds.

Because rye can outgrow all of the common weeds here, and grow without irrigation, I love broadcasting it into the wildlands.

[William S.]

I've stopped picking up free leaves because of the potential to spread bindweed. I'm also pretty paranoid about bringing stuff from my yard in town to my garden land. Its a really annoying weed.

[Ocimum]

Do you know the work of Salvatore Ceccarelli?

He started with grexes of barley in Syria during the eighties (or seventies?), breeding them in a participatory way with the farmers. He is a really nice and approachable guy.

For people wanting a wheat landrace for different climates, there seems to be a project like this, inspired by Salvatore, in the US, based on more than 2000 varieties.
https://oaec.org/projects/wheat-diversity-climate-adaptation/

[William S.]

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/09/syria-holds-the-secret-to-our-species-survival/

This article about Salvatore I have definitely read before. Interesting.

[William S.]

I would think a grex with 2000 wheat varieties would rapidly shed diversity as random chance and competition eliminated some of it. Especially without doing some of the equalization Joseph does with his beans.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Yup, I shed wheat diversity like crazy. About 70% of wheat varieties that I trial do poorly in my garden. I don't give them a second chance, other than as weeds.

[William S.]

I really like this "Evolutionary Plant Breeding" it seems to describe exactly what we are doing and what I personally intend with my populations. That is to provide diversity and allow evolution to occur which should enable populations of crops to respond to the stress of climate change.

Here is another article.

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/stuffed-or-starved-evolutionary-plant-breeding-might-have-the-answer/

[Walt]

Joeseph said.  " Now I can feel content about growing wheat, because I'm involved in a landrace breeding project. While my ancestor's wheat is sentimental, and cool as can be, it's still an heirloom, and that really isn't my passion."

Maybe it would be your passion if the heirloom was a landrace that had been grown and handed down for generations.  That is what some Mennonites in the McPherson, KS, do.  Unfotunately, from my point of view, they only grow it on a few acres of their farm.  The rest of their farm grows higher yielding varieties from KSU or BIG seed companies.
That said, I think I'll get in touch with someone in that area and see if I can get some that hasn't been through serious bottlenecks.  I'm less than 100 miles from McPherson.

[William S.]

The folks who grew my packet of Turkey Red wheat are Kansas farmers.

Emailed my former professor. He says the crossed up progeny of Winsome are ok to use so there is my modern wheat addition and it's hard white spring which is my favorite for baking. Can't just mix it in to a population though.

So if I cross Winsome, Turkey Red, Ethiopian Blue Tinge, and purple Wheat it seems to me that the resulting population would be pretty patriotic here in the states: red, white, and blue wheat.

I think it might be best to do short alternating rows and look for crossed up progeny. I would think the anthocyanin traits would show up well in crosses. Might focus on trying to find a Winsome x Blue cross first. Maybe a row of purple, row of Winsome, and a Row of Blue Tinge. Then watch the middle row offspring for anthocyanin.

[Kai Duby]

I started trialing for my own wheat landrace this year. For now I'm taking out the weakest plants but saving seed from the majority because I hope to trial them in a dryland rotation once I have the land prepared in the near future. This year I just abused them a little and was surprised at how resilient they were. I flood irrigated until early June and then let them be until harvest around mid to late July.

I have many more varieties ordered for this year including many landraces from GRIN that originated in analogous climates to my own.
The varieties I used this year were:

"Roadside"- I found a large patch of these plants growing by an interstate in Denver where they must have been planted for erosion control. They were certainly the most productive.

Lofthouse- From the couple of pinches Joseph gave me I was able to grow more than 3/4lb., which was not as productive as the "Roadside" but that may be because I planted them at different dates during the spring. I plan on closely planting rows of Lofthouse and "Roadside" this year to get more of a side by side comparison before harvesting them together and creating a mix. The two are very similar other than the Lofthouse variety tended to have smaller ears and seeds.

"Seans Wheat"- Likely a commercial winter wheat that my friend grew out in MT. It did not produce seed until nearly September when spring planted and the plants were dwarfed.

Khorasan Wheat and it's weed Wheat tag-alongs- Admittedly I grew this out from the store bought brand name. This was the most diverse wheat and certainly the tastiest so I think the company may be right in calling it a landrace. It produced nearly as well as the "Roadside," which was a surprise. I have more Khorasan Wheat landraces ordered from GRIN to trial alongside the brand name this year. As a bonus the store bought wheat had a couple different varieties of wheat intermixed with the big headed Khorasan. Most of these were a vigorous awnless variety that I ended up seperating out.

[Kai Duby]

Left=Lofthouse. Mid=Roadside. Right= Khorasan.