fall planted grains for low input organic agriculture

[Steph S]

Grains are a major gap in our food system here on the Avalon peninsula and probably island wide.  Of course we have access to grain crops from Canada, and no one is going without their bag of flour.  But this is actually the root of the problem.  Subsidies for import of prairie grain in the early 20th century made growing it here unprofitable, and as a consequence there has been no significant grain production on the island for about a century.   Fast forward to the present, and the lack of grain crops has become a challenge for local organic farmers.   The cost of feed for chickens, for example, is astronomical.   A small scale trial of chickens at the farm a couple of years ago, worked out to a cost of $20 a bird for feed alone.  So when I started experimenting with grain rotations for my garlic, I found a lot of interest among my farmer friends. 
I found online one document of grain trials by provinicial ag within the last decade.  They concluded that fall grains were best for our climate, and gave a planting date optimum mid August, which in some years might be difficult to obtain seed to plant.    Just noting that the climate in Central and Western Newfoundland is quite different from the Avalon.  They have higher summer temperatures, and get a lot more snow - reliable amounts of snow.   Here on the Avalon we have milder winters with a lot of thaws, and highly variable amounts of snow vs rain.  Climate change is expected to give us warmer autumns but we keep the cold, late spring and short summer.  We have seen a lot more hot weather in recent summers, and some winters dominated by snow to rain events followed by freezing.    We've also had a majority of really cold, wet summers in the past decade, due to the effects of melting in Greenland and north.   Some of the climate variability and extremes that come with the territory here are simply getting more extreme, while more heat is a new variable in the bag.  Some of these conditions are also the same that are expected to affect current grain growing regions in the future.  So I also feel that work done here to develop grains adaptable to our conditions has the potential to be of benefit to other regions where grain is a major crop.
I devoted some time this past winter to reading and researching, just to raise my level of knowledge about grain crops and their issues for starters, and secondly to identify the cultivars which are the natural starting place to address our local challenges, and particularly the organic low-input context.
The important challenges identified so far are:  frost tolerance;  disease resistance, especially leaf rust which appears to be endemic here, and Fusarium head blight with its associated mycotoxin issues.  Earliness may be an issue for spring planted grains in cold years, I believe it is less so for fall grains.  In particular where fall grain is intended as a rotation for a garlic crop, the similarity of their degree day requirements may be enough to assure that seed will be mature to plant by the time the garlic is harvested.  Tolerance of marginal soil conditions, especially clay soil, with minimal amendments, would be important for us, since the availability of arable land is a limiting factor for agriculture in the region.  Drought tolerance is also a consideration, but may be less likely to be tested here than in other places, although a short seasonal drought is not uncommon.  There are also likely many other issues which I've overlooked, so please jump in and share your thoughts and observations.   Edited to add: I forgot lodging!   Definitely an issue for us, as one of the windiest inhabited places on earth.  Lodging is worse in rich soils, so there may be site specific differences, as some of the organic farm soils are very rich even without amendments in the season.
  Follows a list of cultivars identified so far, with high values in respect to particular issues.

[Steph S]

Frost tolerance:

(1)  A multi-year, multi-site trial identified Myronivs'ka 808 (Ukraine) (also written Mironovskaya 808) UMKA (Russia) and Lutescens 410H53 (Canada?) as top performers in frost tolerant winter wheats.   These cultivars set the benchmark for frost tolerance in wheat.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5975666/#MOESM1

Interesting to note that the frost tolerance value of Myronivs'ka 808 was discovered in a natural frost event that wiped out other cultivars that season in Ukraine. 
(2) A similar frost survival event is reported by Vilmorin for the landrace Ble de Crepi.
https://museum-agropolis-fr.translate.goog/pages/documents/bles_vilmorin/

There are other hardy winter wheat landraces mentioned by Vilmorin, which I will list in another post re: low input, soil tolerance.   For frost tolerance, I think Ble de Crepi is the top landrace discussed as "equal to the spelts".

(3) Spelts:  Universally acknowledged as the most frost tolerant winter grain, most suitable for northern culture, and a huge plus for my personal agenda since it's my favorite grain for bread.  More about spelts in a separate post.

(4) Rivet wheat is also acknowledged as an exceptionally winter hardy grain.  Not a high quality wheat for bread baking, the 'poulard' if adaptable to our conditions might be part of a chicken feed solution for the farm, if less suitable for the table.
Blue Cone Rivet is cited by Vilmorin as having better grain quality. (although named by V. as Australian, other sources say that the British Blue Cone is identical).
Nonette de Lausanne (Switzerland) is described as exceptionally cold tolerant in the Rivets.

Some exceptions to cold tolerance in Rivet are reported, cultivars from Spain for example.  (The un-named Rivet in my late winter planting trials (Prairie Garden Seeds) which looks like 'Miracle Wheat' with branched heads had similar survival as the spring planted wheats. )
Lodging can be a problem with the rivets due to their long straw.
Awns are barbed and "deer resistant", which could be a plus.

[Steph S]

Soil tolerance/low input organic agriculture:

I have misplaced the links to references at the moment, but a number of research articles have noted that the old landrace wheats produced lower but stable yields under organic, low input conditions.  In addition, the landrace wheats are reported to have more resistance to FHB and other diseases, which has been less of a priority in wheat breading for high input high yield farming systems where a fungicide application is part of the expected input in a given season.
There have been some winter wheat trials to revive old landrace wheats in the UK and Europe. 

I will just clip what I have from my notes, the cold tolerant winter wheat landraces mainly those described by Vilmorin.

Ble de Crepi (France)  Ble de Crepi  #`1420 INRA  as mentioned above. 
Heidenberg Brown (Germany)  also noted for disease resistance.  Origin the Rhine region.  Automne Rouge Barbu   #1117 INRA  Ble Brun d'Heidenberg
Hen Gymro S70  (Wales)  welsh landrace for poor soil and wet weather  Last strain of this in NL gene bank
Rouge d'Ecosse (Scotland) :  v cold tolerant but adapted to chalky soils.
I believe these are all hard red winter wheats.
In the soft white winter wheats, there are several hardy ones mentioned from Scotland.
Shireff White discussed by V. may no longer exist except in its descendants.
Hunter: winter white Scottish origin. adapted to heavy cold soil, very cold tolerant, resists rust and lodging.
Grenadier: winter landrace cold/wet maritime climate, hardy, lodging resistant, good-medium soils, esp good yield on clay
http://www.wheat-gateway.org.uk/search.php?send=1&per=50&search=Shireff%27s&genes=1

Just a note about grain color for Greenie DeS, since you mentioned preferring the white.   I've read that color is a continuum/ sliding scale and that the harder and redder the grain, the better it resists sprouting in the field in a wet season.   This would potentially be a disaster for the farm when summers turn wet, as they can do even in July here, so I'm steering my choices towards redder and harder.   

[Steph S]

Spelts:

Some research has been done on FHB resistance in spelts, which were trialed in nine different environments:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2021.661484/full

Muri Rotkorn:   this Swiss landrace was identified as having the highest FHB resistance, and would be ideal as a benchmark for the trait.
Muri Rotkorn was also grown in a Vermont trial 2020
https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/Northwest-Crops-and-Soils-Program/2020%20Research%20Reports/2020_Spelt_Variety_Trial.pdf
In the FHB research, Ostro and Ebner's Rotkorn, which are also commonly grown in parts of Europe, were said to have high scores for resistance as well.

According to one source, 80% of the spelt grown in Canada is Oberkulmer - however this had only medium resistance and incidence of FHB in the trial.  Frankenkorn which is also grown in Canada also had a medium score and incidence of DON contamination.  So these would be less suitable for low input cultivation ie without fungicides.

Rust resistance:
Canadian spelt accessions:
"Accession 7831 has a gene for seedling resistance to leaf rust that is linked with Lr33 (5.4 ± 1.05%), which is known to he on the long arm of chromosome 1B. This gene, which was either recessive or partially dominant, is designated Lr44, and because of its field reaction, should be useful in breeding rust-resistant wheats. "
https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.4141/cjps94-047
This would certainly be worth including in a trial.

Hulless spelts!  OSSI pledged! 

Two fall planted spelts  "Elwha" and "White Salmon" have been OSSI listed.  They were selected for organic low input dryland cultivation.  Definitely must grow these.
https://osseeds.org/ossi-varieties/elwha/
https://osseeds.org/ossi-varieties/white-salmon/


   

[Steph S]

Zanduri wheats:

I have kept back some seeds of T. militinae and T. zhukovskyi to trial a fall planting this year.   Just noting that their survival from the late winter planting was patchy and no different from the spring wheats.   Also noting that they do not appear immune to the leaf rust.  They are still at an early stage and have some time to go before heading, so will see how they fare overall.  They are certainly much later than the spring wheats, and since they're said to be also fall planted, I hope they would benefit from the head start.
These species wheats are noted for disease resistance, but perhaps they are less so than T.  timopheevi ?.

Notes:  Some wheat accessions with disease immunity from Zanduri crosses (timopheevi)
"Konly, Timsten,
Timgalen, Timvera, Gabo, Bledzoe, Georgia 1123,
etc., share Zanduri wheat's disease immunity traits.
These varieties are also immunity donors and gave
rise to numerous other varieties."

[Ocimum]

ICARDA crossed several hundred wheat varieties with each other as an experiment on evolutionary plant breeding. Maybe you can get your hands on some of this genetic material?
There are winter and summer populations now, some are dark green in the rainier areas, some are silvery blue-green in dryer areas, evolution is at works. Especially if you are interested in disease resistance as well.

You can find several articles by searching "evolutionary wheat populations" for example, or articles by Salvatore Ceccarelli and some wheat keywords.

[Tim DH]

Hi Steph,
   Thanks for a fascinating series of posts. I grow a little grain, (Wheat and Rye, Autumn sown) mostly to help plug the potato gap, and provide a bit of variety. My wife prefers the Rye (cooked as a whole grain) This year the Wheat has lodged terribly, ... maybe I should try something else.

Tim DH

[Steph S]

ICARDA crossed several hundred wheat varieties with each other as an experiment on evolutionary plant breeding. Maybe you can get your hands on some of this genetic material?
There are winter and summer populations now, some are dark green in the rainier areas, some are silvery blue-green in dryer areas, evolution is at works. Especially if you are interested in disease resistance as well.

You can find several articles by searching "evolutionary wheat populations" for example, or articles by Salvatore Ceccarelli and some wheat keywords.

Here is a recent one:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-89405-4_8

I really love this approach, and so pleased to read about their success with it!   The amount of diversity they put into their EP's is just staggering.  Fantastic.

I believe there are still legal obstacles to farmer sale of mixed or unstable wheat seeds in Canada, based upon the latest thing I read from Bauta/SeedChange, but it's promising to see that the EU is changing their rules to allow it.  I expect it will come here too.

Somewhere in my reading about grain I also learned that mixtures of grains were commonly sowed in Britain, this is not in my last file so perhaps from last year's.  Again the practice was intended to reduce disease.   Zanduri wheats were also commonly sown as a mixture in Georgia.  So it seems that farmers had adopted this technique long ago from the observation of its benefits.
Evolutionary populations take it to the next level, for sure.  It is exactly what we need for climate adaptation.

[Steph S]

Hi Steph,
   Thanks for a fascinating series of posts. I grow a little grain, (Wheat and Rye, Autumn sown) mostly to help plug the potato gap, and provide a bit of variety. My wife prefers the Rye (cooked as a whole grain) This year the Wheat has lodged terribly, ... maybe I should try something else.

Tim DH

Tim,
I recall seeing that several of the wheat landraces I mentioned have been revived in Britain and are being commercially grown and used by bakers.  Here it is: in Scotland.
https://scotlandthebread.org/2019/08/28/about-hunters-organic-grain-and-wholemeal-flour/
They're selling whole grain of Balcaskie landrace as a mixture of Hunter, Rouge d'Ecosse, and Golden Drop.  You might find that interesting to grow!
https://scotlandthebread.org/product/balcaskie-landrace-organic-grain/
Oh my goodness - they even have an EP, involving crosses of 20 wheat cultivars. 
https://scotlandthebread.org/product/wakelyns-yq-organic-grain/ 
I'd snap that up in a minute if they were an ounce instead of 3 kilos (aka death by shipping cost!).
They have an evolutionary rye too.

I do like rye too, and use it to make bread, but a little anxious about mycotoxin issues due to the wet climate and rye being especially susceptible.  One of the things I have to address in my trials is the FHB mycotoxin.  Pretty sure I recognized it on the Akmolinka last summer - just a few heads.  But I'm not sure if it can be present without visible signs.  There are test kits available online and that's a purchase I'll be making at some stage,to assess and decide what measures if any need to be taken to ensure there's no toxin in the crop.   I'm definitely interested in trying cooked whole grains - some of the spring wheats I'm trialing look delicious as well.

[Tim DH]

Hi Steph,
   Thanks for the link to Scotland-the-bread s website. You are right, the Wakelyns YQ does sound REALLY interesting. I found some additional info. Here:

https://wakelyns.co.uk/populations/

   Anyway, I've just ordered 3Kg. That'll be enough to have a taste and do a sowing! So if you PM me an address I'll send you an ounce!

   By the way, the website name is a word play on the unofficial Scottish National Anthem 'Scotland The Brave'!



   On the other issue of mycotoxins in rye. ... The only one I've encountered is Ergots, are they what you mean? I get a few ergots most years but they are VERY easy to spot and remove. They are 2 or 3 times the size of normal grains and purple! We always rogue grain by eye before milling, but it rarely even makes it that far, being obvious at the threshing.

Tim DH

[Steph S]

Fantastic link, Tim, showing all the parents!  I will just love to read more about them too.
Definitely taking you up on the share of seed, many thanks!

That is good to know about the ergot being easy to rogue.  The one that's most concerning in wheat is the Fusarium head Blight, which produces a toxin called deoxynivelanol if I got that right, commonly abbreviated DON.   Visual symptoms may not be 100% correlated with levels of DON.   I may be more concerned about it than I should be, but that's typical of me when I put my foot in something new.    Always on watch for a worst case scenario, to learn about it so I do see it coming if it does.
There was FHB on a couple of heads of Akmolinka which I grew last summer, and that kind of set me off.  Our summer conditions seem to be pretty much ideal for FHB to develop vis temperature and humidity. 

With regards FHB resistance, here are some links to studies that identified and named resistant cultivars.

The full text article on the study of 80 spelts:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8058439/
The cultivars and outcomes are listed in their supplementary data sheet, and well worth the look.  You can see how visual symptom scores are not directly a match for the actual level of toxin, in most of the tested spelts.  Also it seems to me that some others could have been ranked higher than Muri Rotkorn as they had lower DON.
Just to put that in perspective, there is a threshhold where a certain amount of this has no effect or is considered tolerable, I'm not sure what those levels are at present but at some point it will become relevant....

There is also lots of good reading in the sidebar of references, some full texts available there too.

With regards to wheat breeding,  Sumai 3 from Asia is often used for FHB resistance in North American breeding, also Frontana from Brazil has been cited, but other sources are used in European breeding.
This article on winter wheat FHB resistance tested a large number of accessions from Sweden against the Sumai 3, and at least 11 of them surpassed its resistance in the field.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4379521/

It may also be the case that FHB is not a major problem in our area for other reasons, such as winter survival.  If it turns out to be rare, then it would be pointless to breed for resistance and then be unable to select for it in the field (because it isn't there).   I think my current season summer grains should be a good trial for that, with rain and humid weather during the anthesis period, this is where FHB should turn up if it's in the environment.

[Adrian]

In swiss they try to mixed the grains with lentils.
It tmprove the yield.
Maybe some swiss cereals are adapted

[Steph S]

Adrian, I'm trying peas with my grains, and looking for the right combination of height and straw strength in the spring grains I trialed so far.  I got some sturdy barley that doesn't lodge, true to the claim, but it's a bit short even for the dwarf peas.  I think the peas are about to outgrow them.
I also planted peas and a couple of chick peas in the gaps in the grain due to I guess frost kill.   Not sure how that will work out but I really like the idea of combining grain with legumes.   I haven't grown lentils before, chick peas are new to me too.  By description they are less likely to thrive in our usual summers.  But then again, we are getting quite a bit of hotter than normal weather. 

[Adrian]

https://www.terre-net.fr/observatoire-technique-culturale/strategie-technique-culturale/article/cultures-associees-cereales-legumineuses-d-vernet-explique-les-interets-217-170863.html

[Greenie DeS]

Steph,

this looks like a great project, especially with the challenge of your winter conditions.

Have you looked into synthetic wheats at all? I've only just barely scratched the surface with that reading.

Do you have any more sources? I'm eyeing up that scottish one myself.

I'm planning on doing a bunch of fall planting this year just to see what makes it through and what doesn't; from what I understand from some folks who have played with it (Great Lakes Staple Seeds, maybe some others) more may be facultative in various climates than expected from the stories that come along with them.

With regards to colour, I actually... just like variety, I love the way different wheats taste different and I haven't had much access to white wheats in the past.

I've seen an instagram video of free-threshing spelt run past my feed several times this month, I'll try and pin it down.

I'm not sure if I sent you any of my bouchard pea? It's a very dwarf soup pea, seems to grow well with grains. I got it from PR seeds originally but I don't see it listed there anymore. This is my second year of seed increase. Not high yield, but it isn't competition for bigger plants at all, it just hangs out a couple inches from the ground and does its thing. Probably impossible to machine harvest.

I'd been avoiding rye because I'm scared of ergot, but I'm going to give it a try this fall. I made some really tasty cookies with rye flour that I think tipped the balance on that.

Can't wait to hear how the project evolves, and to see your final list for planting in... just over a month now! Wow this year is going fast.