I’ll make a small plot in my veggie garden to grow whatever I have out this autumn. Start of a bird resistant population. Not an unimportant feature. Funny thing about EP gardening. Even failures lead to good things.
I doubt millers will be happy with the beard hairs, but in fact the locally adapted rye growing next to it has this same feature and is still standing strong.
Hopefully in Antibes I can make some connections to restart this project, but i"ll have to get better organized. A harvesting machine like @stephane_rave has seems key. I’ll show that picture to the farmers I know.
Malte said he will have northern adaptation farming wheatgrowers in the convention he’s receiving Joseph in. He could be key to receiving Northern genetics to add in the French mix.
for our crops, the wheat comes out of the machine in a bag. We can’t dry it after that would be complex. We must therefore harvest at 13% humidity, it is the perfect rate for a good storage for a few days time vanning. We use a humidity tester to find the right time, but of course the weather is key!
For predators it is fair we have practically no on our crops in different fields. We use only flour varieties, which are probably not popular with birds, very many here.
this year we lost with the climate all our multiplication squares with more than 50 varieties from southern countries…
We need to start collecting them again.
Within the association I advocate for the reduction of our wheat crops. After a review, it seems to me that this is not a perennial culture in the sense that a lot of mechanization, fossil fuels, a lot of human resources, a lot of time… and that this very quickly impoverishes the fertility of the fields. It is also a culture that can not be resilient to climate change, which is a harsh reality in Europe.
The same bread goal can be achieved with corn cereal much more easily. Everything can be done by hand from sowing to harvesting the ears, but again it takes a team to carry out the project.
In 2/3 years we will have whole fields of the Painted Mountain population, and I am convinced that the bread will be so good with this landrace that we will grow less and less wheat
Interesting. I was taught to reserve a portion of all previous harvests but for a different reason. As the population adapts to your microclimate and location, you will inevitably lose genetics from your pool. You have a balance between maintaining a diverse population and that population becoming highly adapted to where it’s being grown.
Sow in year 1 sow a portion of your seed. Year 2, mainly sow your generation 2 seed, including a tiny fraction of your gen 1 seed. Add in more tiny fractions from all years going forward for each generation. This allows you to adapt your population but keeps in any lost genetics which may be useful in the future.
I see. Volkswagen Beetle motor is handy.
There’s always maintenance…
But guys like the mechanics and nostalgia.
People are quite fussy about their breads, so if you can convince them to give up their wheat flour remains to be seen.
The EP we’re growing is supposed to adapt quickly and replace cides and nitrogen. It’s from the poorest soils. With a team it can be harvested by hand traditionally.
I like your perspective to go corn, but believe they can co-exist.
I was taking a good portion of the left over grains and flocks of evil house martins flew off early morning. The ones flattened by deer or badgers contained most seeds.
One more haul and it’s done.
Yes. Having a team is always better. But investing in a group of people and all this meeting takes a lot of time too. I just don’t know enough likeminded folk round here so lone wolving for now.
people love the old agricultural mechanics, as soon as we take out the machines all the curious and nostalgic of the region arrive!
There are even people who hate agriculture and the peasant work that just come to help us maintain the Massey Harris 630 s.
This year we broke a piece after 1 hour of harvest…the 3/4 of volunteers present went to the workshop to repair it and we were only 4 to collect grain by hand…
yes both must be kept because there is a winter crop and the other summer so wheat and corn are complementary and well to make rotations, however sorghum, sarasin… maize are future crops.
We will also sow 2 perennial wheat varieties this fall, Tim Peters Perennial Wheat Grex and ‘Salish Blue’ Perennial Wheat…
if we get to this with eliminating the operations of tillage and sowing, we will have reduced 80% of fuel expenses and time spent on the tractor…
Strong roots are also much more resistant to drought…it promises to be a small revolution!
yes working in a group can be time consuming, but there is a stage or when you are sufficiently numerous and willing…you can plan a harvest for the next day with only one mail message that locates the field and the time without meetings
@stephane_rave thank you for this reminder that machinery implies added constrains on the cycle. Tipycally if I had been forced to wait for 13% humidity because of the machine, I would have lost much more of the crop in the birds’ stomachs. Ha ! ha!
I agree corn is interesting because of the possibility to do everything by hand. it may be subject for another discussion, but I need to learn more about the equipment needed for transforming corn info bread. It seems you need powefull tools to grind dry corn kernels… I have not yet been able to complete a nixtamalization either…
Back to the wheat EP we are talking about : I now have a “spring wheat” population (because I sowed very late) and still enough of the original population for a winter trial next autumn.
Machinerie adds constraints. It goes far! These millers should be putting up with beardy bread wheat population cause it’s coming!
Why is rye so hairy? I don’t know if all is, but the one I have adapted to Morvan is for sure.
I was throwing it through the woodchopper yesterday and these weird sturdy hairs! It literally escapes sometimes out from the feeding mouth of the chipper. It’s like AliVEee… Funnily enough the chipper doesn’t break many seeds. So that’s how I do that. Try yours as well!
But those hairs. They safe the seeds. Also on wheat. The house martin (piaff) can’t reach the seeds!! It pushes the seed pod away every time they come in with their beak to grab a seed. Those hairs evolved over millions of years. Modern breeders got rid of them. Just grow millions of hectares of mono culture and the birds can’t possibly eat it all. I guess the millers don’t like them either. Weirdly moving pods in the shop, hairs in the machinery.
But were we are as tiny breeders. Small scale is the norm. And then it would be handy to have bird resistance, because they can and will do major damage.
So these millers need to change the machinery.
Next year @stephane_rave , tell me when the day is of your collective. I’ll come with my hairy rye and hairy wheat to test the beautiful machinery your collective has. Give those technicians something to chew on if not headache…
Last of the harvest! Hairy and proud of it!!!
you will be welcome next year, but you will be less surprised by these hi-tech mechanical jokes.
All our wheat is bearded also against predation, but the selection is made only on bread wheat. For this we realize a population with several old local varieties, and some reference as ‘Rouge de Bordeaux’ that bring us a good work of aeration for the bread.
