"Let's grow wheat like it was when I was a kid"
When Dad made this suggestion in 2019, we didn't know how challenging this request could be, or what an interesting path it would open to us.
Banatka Wheat
We had a difficult time finding wheat seeds that weren't modern varieties of hybrids. While researching, we found the book, "Restoring Heritage Grains" by Eli Rogosa. Upon request, purchasers of the book could also get a handful of free Banatka wheat seeds - a non-hybrid seed! This is where we started.
Eli's book is one of the best for learning about Heritage Grains.
(We don't have a financial affiliation - we just
think you might like this great book)
The First Year
Following Eli's instructions, we planted some clover to act as a cover crop, fixing nitrogen and hopefully providing some ground cover to discourage weeds. We didn't know what we were doing and got a tall red clover from an Amish neighbor (all of the commercial clover in our rural town was chemically treated, and that just didn't seem right for this ancient wheat). The tall red clover was a beautiful plant, but not what we needed. We really needed a low-growing clover variety. We know more about cover crops and soil biology now, but we were just getting started and had a lot to learn (we still have a lot to learn - there is always a lot to learn).
Winter wheat is planted in the Autumn and is harvested the following Summer. Not sure exactly when to plant this variety in Southern Ohio, we planted half of it in late September and the other half in early October. We learned that the later planting did not do as well.
Even with our experiments and mistakes, like magic, the resilient seeds sprouted and produced scraggly little wheat-grass blades. They didn't look like much, but they gave us hope.
The next Summer, the plants did their best to battle the weeds and produced seed heads in May.
That first handful of seeds yielded about two cups, which were harvested with a pair of kitchen scissors and threshed by hand. There may not have been much, certainly not enough to use for food. But these weren't just any seeds. These were the Banatka seeds with the genetic traits that did the best on our farm - in our soil and in our climate. These are the seeds we would plant in the fall to slowly build up a real crop. These were the seeds we did not have to buy from a corporate seed supplier. These were mighty seeds indeed.
Each year, we replanted the seeds we saved from the previous year. In the second year, we harvested with a scythe and let the wheat stand in shocks until the AllCrop Harvester arrived. We harvested about 26 pounds of wheat that year - 1/3 of a bag!
Each year, we saved the seeds from the previous harvest, building from scratch a new field crop supply and making it possible to bring this unique flour now available in limited quantities to our local markets.
Small scale seed cleaning
July 2023 Banatka Harvest
The 2023 Banatka Harvest came in beautifully. We were able to get the crop in - 1.8 acres, just before the thunderstorms hit.
We harvested about 2,500 pounds with an Allis-Chalmers All-Crop 66.