This news was recently shared by SOPA friend and partner Chris Hardy at Hardy Seeds
This week we began harvest of dozens of rare grains, some that came from places humans first cultivated them thousands of years ago, including Iraq, Ukraine, Syria, Armenia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and beyond.
Three years ago, Hardy Seeds accepted an invitation from Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA) to participate in their heritage grains trials project. RMSAʼs goal has been to increase education around heritage grains and to increase the available seed of extremely limited, pre-industrial grains for growers across the country.
We expanded the project to include a local focus to increase local food resilience here in S. Oregon.
Over these three years, we have recruited more than ten local farmers and gardeners to help grow and increase the local supply of these seeds, including Fry Family Farm, the largest certified organic farm in S. Oregon. All growers will finish harvest in the next few weeks, and if all goes well we anticipate a harvest of a few thousand pounds from the tablespoon or so of seed we started with just three years ago.
At our farm, growing, selecting and comparing performances within varieties have been vital to moving efforts forward for local production and data collection. This data is being archived and shared with seed growers across the country. In total we have been selecting from more than 100 heritage and landrace varieties that include rye, spelt, emmer, barley oats, einkorn, wheat, dry/upland rice, quinoa, millet, maize, buckwheat, amaranth, sorghum and others.
Heritage grains are known to be deep-rooted, drought-tolerant, higher in nutrition, and high-carbon producing for regenerative farming practices. In the three years, most of these crops have exceeded our highest expectations receiving no supplemental irrigation water or fertilizers, even through a historic drought and record-breaking heat wave last year.
As we prepare for harvest, processing and storage of this yearʼs harvest, we are seeking local bakers. If you know of any who may be interested in preliminary baking trials, have them contact me at this email. We are exploring means to efficiently process the flour at scale, including prospects with the historic Butte Creek Mill which will return to operation this fall after a tragic fire a few years ago.
Also, we are seeking growers who would like to plant this fall, even a 50ft bed, or on any scale, to help continue expanding seed stock to help build up the grain seed library to ensure ongoing access for local growers. Growers are asked to return 15-20% of seed produced back to the seed library.
Here are some pics of our trials and a few of our grower partners: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wmczma77gx4bw43/ AABDJXiHj4_GVUUAv7o0wKgQa?dl=0
Currently the threshing and winnowing equipment is being provided by:
Winnow Wizard winnowing machine – Southern Oregon Seed Growers Association (SOSGA)
Treadle Thresher – Redwood Seeds/N. California Seed Growers Assoc/ Organic Seed Alliance (OSA)
We still need support to help cover expenses:
$1000 seed money for site visits, consulting with local farmers and project data collection
$200 organic straw mulch (for our summer grain trials)
$100 hand scythes
$100 rodent traps
$250 5gal buckets and storage containers
$175 flour mill burr
$600 flour mill motor/labor
$600 upgrade our irrigation filter
If you want to support us in this ongoing project paypalme/hardyseeds or Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/chris-hardy-91
Reply above if you are interested in helping us bring in the harvest or are interested in joining us for a small grains workshop July 30th in Ashland, with a visit to at least two grain growing plots.
If this is the first update you have seen in a while and want to receive occasional updates, or want to be removed here, let me know.
Chris
Hardy Seeds, Ashland, OR
www.growhardyseeds.com