HERITAGE WHEAT BLEND PROJECT
In March 2007 the farm was offered some old varieties of wheat grain by cereal archeobotanist, John Letts. Interested in seeing if this could produce a viable crop, trial plots were set up to plant the wheat, 45kg of April Bearded and 75kg labelled ‘Ancient Wheat’. Some of the seeds were identified as the variety Bartholomew. Despite a disappointing first harvest the resulting grain was re planted over subsequent years. See the timeline and growing notes about the Doves Farm Heritage Wheat project.
With successive planting the different varieties of wheat within the blend adapted to the local soil conditions on the farm, grain quality improved and the yields became more stable.
Each year the grain was finely cleaned and sorted to remove small and damaged grains thus optimising seed quality for the next planting. In 2010, 500kg of the prepared seed was given back to the original grain donor for his own use and the remainder used for planting.
As a result of the seed preparations, successive crops have looked better during the growing season with the 2010 harvest producing grain of good milling quality. A viable modern heritage wheat landrace crop had been produced from the original seed.
Read our interview with John Letts here.
2007
|
2007 |
|
|
Field |
Council |
|
Soil Type |
Medium Clay |
|
Sowing Date |
4th April 2007 |
|
Drill Rate |
120k/hectare |
|
Agronomic notes |
Tall thin crop, many weeds Wide variety of seed heads with awns (whiskers) many with twisted appearance Damp harvest and poor yield Grain from both plots mixed together |
|
Harvest Date |
|
|
Protein |
15% |
|
Hagberg Falling No |
230 |
|
Gluten Quality |
Good, stretchy, soft and sticky |
|
Milling |
Lab mill testing |
