First Wheat in 100 Years

[Andy Wilson]

Hype or true?

On the land in question, a boggy meadow subject to seasonal flooding and composed of deep peat with a thin layer of clay and silt on top, definitely true.
Its reasonably safe to say wheat was NEVER grown on this land before. Hay was cut at one time. If it was ever tilled there is no sign.

The plot is about 3km from the town of Westport. Wheat is not grown in this area, at least not in  the last few decades. The soil is considered too poor, the climate too wet, for modern methods of tillage, and for the demands of modern markets.

Spring wheat was chosen: again an unusual step. Even where wheat is sown in the counties of the west, no one sows spring wheat. It has to be sown in late winter or early spring,when the ground is too wet for machinery.

However, much is possible when older methods are used.

The land was prepared by hand, the seed sown by hand, and the weeding, harvesting, threshing, and winnowing all done by hand too. Some grain has been hand-ground for bread-making (reports to follow).

The preparation work was carried out in February and March,the grain sown a week or so after Paddy's day on a single raised ridge.

It was not an exceptional year for grain: the farmers in Ireland are saying its been damn poor. But they always say that.

In the UK, where spring wheat is grown organically on a large scale, the counties with the highest yields might average 8 tonnes per hectare,the worst around 2 tonnes.

The grain was harvested during two short spells on the 13th and 15th Sept. The patch was only 40.5 m2,  slightly over a two hundred and fiftieth of a hectare.

The yield (milling-dry weight) was 32.5kg. Extrapolated that would be just over 8 tonnes per hectare. Lincolnshire watch out.

Luck? Quite possibly.

The residual fertility of land that is cultivated for the first time? Yes, that too.

And it got plenty of compost.

You wouldn't expect that yield every year, but there again, only half as much would be OK too.

Hand tillage. Can't beat it. No oil dependency, no technology, no soil compaction, no waiting for dry weather before venturing onto the land.

The soil texture actually improved between sowing and harvesting. Oats (spring oats, that is) to follow.

Way to go.

Anyone who wants to get involved in this project, please  email me directly: [e-mail]

[Michael Layden]

Nice mental picture of your front garden with wheat swaying in the breeze as the "normal" life of surburbia flowed around this oasis of sanity. 

It's getting very late in the day. These are two interesting links.

One on the impact of poor harvests etc  on food prices.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/19/mass-slaughter-farm-...

The other is a report by the IMF on the impact of high food prices on society

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51655380/Food-Prices-and-Political-Instab...

[Andy Wilson]

Cheers for that Richard. Agree, no plot is too small. I recall planting winter wheat in a  10m2  front garden (of a rented house in a suburban housing estate) back in the 80s. Meanwhile the neighbours were busy laying tarmac and paving slabs over THEIR gardens. 

[Richard Stone]

Hi Everyone,

I saw this plot several times over the summer and indeed walked in the boggy field before all Andy's hard work. It was fantastic and inspiring. We should all be giving this a go even on small plots to increase the knowledge base and expertise.

Good stuff Andy, thanks.

[Andy Wilson]

Kate, Theresa: thanks.

Its a truly powerful, potentially life-changing thing: the growing of grain has been a feature of every major civilisation (in fact almost EVERY civilisation, except those of deserts, arctic or polar regions) - and the sense of this permeates every aspect of the process. The sense of empowerment, when you realise you are developing the skills to actually feed yourself (and your family or community)),  and you  see the crop harvested and safely stored, is massive. 

[Kate Park]

That's heartening to hear. Appreciate the report and inspiration 

[Andy Wilson]

There were a few tricks employed which might be useful for others to know of.

The ridge was just under 2m wide, with the wheat sown in rows across the ridge at 225mm (9 inch) spacing. This made it possible to weed the rows by hoe without walking on the ridge. Spring wheat tends to grow very fast compared to the autumn-sown varieties (paradoxically known as 'winter' wheat) so outgrows most weeds anyway. Once the wheat gets tall and starts thickening up, hoeing is no longer possible but the few weeds that emerge above the stalks of grain can be pulled by hand.

The threshing is fun - if the wheat is left until the last possible moment (either before it fall from the stalks or the stalks are wrecked by the weather) then as the grain is cut by sickle (not scythe) each handful can immediately be threshed by whacking it over the side of a large plastic barrel brought out to the field for that purpose. Its quite easy to do - some of my wheat was threshed by Ale, who's only eight years old. Some heads will end up in the barrel too and these have to be sorted through afterwards.

The winnowing is straightforward -  on a windy day simply pour the grain and chaff from a bucket at head height onto a piece of cloth or polythene at ground level. The wind will blow the chaff away. The trick is to pour slowly. A repeat of the process  will help remove the last bits of chaff.

In terms of food, 32kg of grain is quite a lot, even if I ate very little else it would keep me going for several months.

[Theresa]

Well done Andy :)