For example, if the soil lacks fertility, I am reluctant to spread compost just before seeding the grain. I prefer to apply compost well before sowing the previous fall, for spring wheat , giving weed seeds time to sprout and get killed by shallow tillage before the crop even goes in. Better yet, I prefer to grow wheat after a short rotation of green manure such as oats and field peas , which will help with both fertility and weed control. Of course an excellent method of weed control is mulch, but how do you mulch a crop whose plants are so closely spaced?
Any kind of hardwood leaves will do, but I prefer maple. For spring wheat, I store them in a huge rain-proof bin until needed. When the wheat is only a few inches high, I walk through it with a trash barrel full of leaf shreds under my arm and strew a blizzard of the confetti over the entire area. Any flakes that land directly on the plants will usually sift down around them, making a fluffy blanket of mulch everywhere.
The first shower will settle the mulch into a tight, felt-like layer, which will repress weeds and retain moisture better than several inches of hay mulch. This leaf mulch has an added benefit with winter wheat. In Maine, spring wheats are usually preferred, because our cold, open, early winters tend to freeze and thaw the ground, heaving wheat roots and impairing the crop. Aside from this problem, winter wheat has some advantages over spring wheat.
Again it fits better into the calendar: It is sown and reaped when other crops are demanding less attention. Also its greatest growth period is during the season of ample moisture and lengthening days. Given the protection of a late fall leaf mulch, winter wheats are more productive in my garden.
If you do plant spring wheat, sow it as early as possible. Grasses are photoperiodic, meaning they make vegetative growth until the days begin to shorten after June 22 , then they begin to focus on making seed, or grain. Yes, whole wheat berries are nothing more than grass seed. Therefore, every day of pre-solstice growth adds to the yield. The earlier the seedlings emerge, the more tillers, and thus the more grain, will form per plant.
Table 2 identifies the pounds of seed needed based on the number of seeds per pound and your population target. For example, if seed size is 12, seeds per pound and the target seeding rate is 1. Table 3 is useful for assessing the number of seeds being dropped by each row unit 7. So, with the 1. Table 2. Relating seed size and target seeding rates to the number of pounds required per acre. Table 3.
Relating target seeding rate per acre to seed and seedling numbers for 7. This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. Planting the wheat crop. Planting preparations Achieving top yields requires a uniform stand of healthy seedlings. Tillage systems Wheat establishment can be successful under conventional, minimum tillage and no-till systems.
Seeding date Ideally, winter wheat is planted while the soil and air temperatures are still warm to ensure that seedlings can emerge quickly and in plenty of time to develop a couple of tillers and a strong root system. Table 1. Hessian fly-free-dates for Michigan County Sept. County Sept. Clair 16 Calhoun 19 Iosco 7 Monroe 21 St. My return is about 5 to 1.
Plant 3 lbs, get about 15 lbs of harvest. This compares to about 30 to one for commercial growers for non-irrigated they plant about 2 bushels per ace and yield about 50 to 60 bushels per acre. I have used flailing into a large metal trash can with hand-sized bunches - this is real work but good exercise - no need to do it all at one time if you have a dry storage location fo rthe harvested wheat.
Flailing does require you to cut or pull the wheat stalks rather than cutting just the heads off. Winnowing is the easiest part - just pour slowly from one container to the other in fron of a strong fan - the wheat berries fall down and the chaff blows away. I use a grain attachment on my stand mixer that works great and produces very fine flour.
I went to Agway in Greensburg, Pa. I planted it and followed all the directions in the article. When it came up it was lush and green but as time went on it did not look like the pictures. I dug up a sample and took it back to Agway but they said they did not know what it was!?! They had to consult a book, "Weeds of the Eastern United States" and the best match they could come up with was Goose Grass.
They recommended that I mow the entire planting using a catcher bag and destroy the cuttings. They said not to compost it as the seeds may not be killed and to rototill the entire area where it had been planted.
I am very disappointed with this result and I wonder it anyone else has any thoughts about what went wrong? I will check back on this thread periodically. I live in Bracebridge Ontario and am serious about growing my own!! What types could you recommend for me in my climate zone? Should I do winter wheat or spring?
Ok, what about fertilizing the wheat? When, how much, what type of fertilizer? Anyone want to tackle these questions, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I bought a 50 lb bag of wheat at the feed store that is meant to feed to animals and just threw it out in the yard where the chicken coop had been last after the chickens ate down all the grass.
It grew up tall, green, luscious right away and my chickens and ducks ate it all when they went free range later. The goat also loved it. I plan to get another bag and spread the seed out where the pigs were last this year, a bigger area probably about the size of a good country garden. Or maybe it will be peas, I haven't decided yet. We are seriously low on green stuff in the house and the animals need forage, too.
It is cold, so peas may be what I have to do first. I figured lentils, squash, corn, peas, beans are a good start- high in protien for them, and gives a crop for the humans as well, or has a lot of green stuff they can eat. Only, I am looking for a cheap, free, easy way to keep my goat and my chickens out of it.
If it looks good, she eats it. This includes my hair if I sit still long enough! I have managed to put some of that plastic thick garden netting up and it kinda sorta keeps the chickens out. I grow grain in my garden. The way I thresh wheat and rye is to lay a sheet on the ground below where I'll be working.
I put a piece of plywood on the sheet, leaning it against the picnic table or a saw horse. I hold the straw with the grain heads pointing down and beat the grain heads with a plastic baseball bat. It is much easier doing it that way than whacking it inside a garbage can.
The grain falls onto the sheet. I gather the sheet up and empty the grain into a bucket or canning pot any large container. I winnow away the chaff by setting up a fan a box fan will do fine and pouring the grain from one container down in front of the fan to another container on the ground.
It is amazing how well that works. All this is shown in my video Cover Crops and Compost Crops IN Your Garden, which shows how to manage those crops in your garden using only hand tools. It is available from www. Hi Jeanna! When I plant my wheat, I plant it in rows. When it first comes up, it looks like a grassy weed that I have growing around. If it is in the row, I can tell it is the wheat and not the weedy imitator.
I use a regular blender to grind it up. It really is not as good as a mill which I am thinking of buying. When I make bread, I mix my flour with whole wheat flour and it works well. If I only use my wheat, it is a little more textured that regular whole wheat flour - read gritty!
Why would seeds per acre be preferred over pounds or bushels? The first consideration involves understanding how much difference there can be between seed lots in the number of seeds per pound. This range can be as many as 10, to as much as 20, seeds per pound. It becomes quickly apparent that each lot planted at 60 pounds per acre would give vastly different plant populations.
If the desired stand was around one million seeds per acre, then the first lot would fall far short and the second lot would be about correct.
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