Interesting Article on a British Wheat Landrace

[Ferdzy]

Interesting for the landrace, but also because it talks about the wheat in a number of different contexts.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/oct/10/flour-power-meet-the-bread-heads-baking-a-better-loaf

[triffid]

I grow a landrace wheat supposedly comprised of hundreds of varieties via John Letts & Andy Forbes breeding work. It's not related to the ORC Wakelyns Population of the article (at least I think not), but I can attest to its flavour. The plants overwintered for me, though admittedly where I am has very mild winters, and the 'berries' taste wonderful just cooked as a rice substitute. Not at all how I imagined wheat to taste. I have not yet tried it milled or in a loaf but it must be delicious. https://www.trenchmore.co.uk/heritage-grains
Really makes you wonder about how bland and homogeneous the food we eat has become.

[Ferdzy]

Hi Triffid;

Good for you! We don't really have the space.

I just read another article noting the effects that climate change is having on the nutritional profile of plants generally.

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/10/climate-change-is-pumping-your-food-full-of-carbs/

There are so many strands coming together to make a crisis in food. Our human tendency to want to create systems that work at peak efficiency for one or two specific traits (in the case of food, the intersection of productivity and ease of processing) leads to gross deficiencies in other areas and a system that's going to crash as soon as anything changes much. And, this being life, something is going to change sooner or later. Irish potato (and subsequent) famines writ large, coming up.

[triffid]

No space here either, I only grew it as a winter cover crop on the allotment and used the straw around the strawberries in the summer  Taste tests purely from the farmer's grain.

I had heard that soil degradation had led to poorer mineral quantity in our food compared to say, 60 years ago. But I was unaware increasing CO2 levels leads to a reduction in nutrient quality. I suppose it makes perfect sense, if conc. of carbohydrate increases, proportionally other components decrease. This can't just be remedied by soil stewardship. Of course, certain governmental organisations are suppressing the research, surprise surprise.

[Walt]

Hi Triffid;

Good for you! We don't really have the space.

I just read another article noting the effects that climate change is having on the nutritional profile of plants generally.

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2019/10/climate-change-is-pumping-your-food-full-of-carbs/

There are so many strands coming together to make a crisis in food. Our human tendency to want to create systems that work at peak efficiency for one or two specific traits (in the case of food, the intersection of productivity and ease of processing) leads to gross deficiencies in other areas and a system that's going to crash as soon as anything changes much. And, this being life, something is going to change sooner or later. Irish potato (and subsequent) famines writ large, coming up.

When breeding for higher yeilds, protien per acre does go up, generally.  But carbs go up faster.  So percent protien goes down,

[Richard Watson]

I take it in great pride being able to buy local grown organic grains direct from the farmer, the wheat comes in 25kg bags which we grind in our Schnitzer. The first isle in our supermarket is bread and fizz drinks, an isle we have been down for many years.

[Ferdzy]

Keep us posted how it does, Paul.