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Home gardeners seem like a pretty good option here. For more regular vegetables, this is already a thing that exists with seed libraries and exchanges, and prog

Home gardeners seem like a pretty good option here. For more regular vegetables, this is already a thing that exists with seed libraries and exchanges, and programs that preserve heirloom varietals and sell the seeds to gardeners. Buying these seeds is basically just a way to help pay for the continued cultivation by the breeder (unfortunately, unless you really know what you are doing and are quite careful, preserving a specific variety on your own in a home garden is difficult-verging-on-impossible, despite what 1000 online guides to "seed saving" will tell you). The harder thing is the grains, since those typically require so much more work to get from the plant to the plate. I've looked into growing my own wheat before (I already have a large garden and have enough space that I could theoretically grow enough wheat to cover a substantial portion of my annual flour use), but the small scale/DIY options for threshing, sorting, grinding, and sifting are just not quite practical (for the level of effort I'm willing to put in, which I'm quite sure is higher than most home gardeners). If a small scale solution to harvesting and processing wheat can be made relatively cheap and simple, I'd bet you could get home gardeners to support the continued cultivation of these varieties in the same way that they frequently support heirloom tomatoes etc. Again, to be very clear, the gardeners themselves are (mostly) not doing the preserving. The plants home gardeners grow are a dead-end genetically (usually not being preserved at all, and even when they are, almost certainly representing mixes of several different varieties), but buy purchasing seeds from the larger scale growers, they are paying to support the continued cultivation of those varieties.

greetings 2y ago
Wowa, something I have experience with. I've harvested 25lbs of wheat berries from a boulevard in my city. I then threshed, winnowed it myself. I still have some of the flour and berries left and use it to make bread. I did my threshing using a lawn mower on a big tarp. This actually worked fairly well. Were I to do it again I would probably want a more repeatable setup. Ive seen some good strategies on youtube. The winnowing I did with a leaf blower, and worked pretty well, I think I would use this strategy again, but I suspect if you were going to do it more often it would be very easy to build something that would help mechanically. I have a friend with a little home flour mill which took a while but was perfect for turning it into flour. If you were to do it fresh when you wanted to make bread these little mills are fantastic. There's a book I highly recommend reading called Small Scale Grain Raising [1] that has a lot of good tips, and ways to do this kinda stuff. In this book they recommend using a leaf shredder or wood chipper which would be incredibly effective. [1] https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raising/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raisi...
- schoen 2y ago
  How did that boulevard end up planted with edible wheat?
  - lm28469 2y ago
    I'd be more worried about how polluted it is
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      You are not going to believe what they use to harvest and deliver wheat
      - SECProto 2y ago
        I would suggest that the edge of a typical busy boulevard features 10-30 thousand vehicles per day, whose brake and tire particles in particular end up in the soil around the road. Typical farm fields might see 30,000 trips over the span of what, 100 or 1000 years? It's not in any way comparable to an urban roadway.
      - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
        I think it's a bit of a different comparison given that there's probably some accumulation of lead from decades of leaded gasoline from urban traffic. Obviously still worth doing but it'd be interesting to see whether remediation of some kind would be worth while.
  - greetings 2y ago
    It was erosion control after some new road work. I sorta suspect they did bring in new dirt for it as well. I do only use it in small amounts. Not really gonna make a difference over time in terms of pollution/heavy metals. But it was still a worthwhile project.
- giantg2 2y ago
  I did a small patch of wheat and barley. I also malted it to make my own beer. I just used a box fan for winnowing. I built a 5 gallon bucket thresher to use with a drill. Worked really well. I'm doing winter wheat this year for bread.
dheera 2y ago
> are a dead-end genetically Is this on purpose or a technical limitation? Can we create a new plant that (1) tastes good (2) is not a genetic dead end (3) is easily spread to other farms by squirrels and birds (4) low maintainence, and put an end to this DRM? I mean it would be kind of nice if there existed a forest full of food that nobody had to maintain. > they are paying to support the continued cultivation of those varieties The plants are living beings, if they are allowed to behave like living beings without being crippled, perhaps the varieties will continue to exist naturally without said support.
- groby_b 2y ago
  > The plants are living beings, if they are allowed to behave like living beings without being crippled, perhaps the varieties will continue to exist naturally without said support. Alas, there are too many humans for that. So, either you support the plants, or one of us has to give - plants or humans. Humans aren't known for giving in, which means slim odds for unsupported plants.
  - meristohm 2y ago
    Yeah, this tendency of ours (and life in general- look how invasive species can flourish without much predation) to take what we can has gotten us in trouble now that we have so many resources available to us. Unpopular and I'm not sure how unethical, and likely dead on arrival in congress, but rrgulating the extraction of resources, including and especially petroleum, is one way. Needs to go hand in hand with culture shift to be effective, though; enough of us have to realize the harm we're doing and opt for a better (as in, more respectful of the future of diverse life on earth) way to live.
- MostlyStable 2y ago
  I meant dead end in the sense that their genes aren't going anywhere. 90+% of home gardeners don't save seeds, and the few that do are almost certainly not preserving the strains they think they are since, most gardeners grow multiple varieties at the same time that are all getting cross pollinated. It was not meant to imply anything about the viability of the strain they are growing, many of which are fantastic heirlooms that have been around for generations.
smackeyacky 2y ago
I can't see it's possible to grow a useful amount of wheat for a single family without a decent sized plot and a large amount of labour. Most modern varieties rely on a lot of fertiliser as well. Wheat is more or less useless for the home gardener and has been for 200 years.
- anon84873628 2y ago
  https://books.google.com/books/about/Homegrown_Whole_Grains.html?id=qeqhpKRKsB4C&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/Homegrown_Whole_Grains....

greetings 2y ago

Wowa, something I have experience with. I've harvested 25lbs of wheat berries from a boulevard in my city. I then threshed, winnowed it myself. I still have some of the flour and berries left and use it to make bread. I did my threshing using a lawn mower on a big tarp. This actually worked fairly well. Were I to do it again I would probably want a more repeatable setup. Ive seen some good strategies on youtube. The winnowing I did with a leaf blower, and worked pretty well, I think I would use this strategy again, but I suspect if you were going to do it more often it would be very easy to build something that would help mechanically. I have a friend with a little home flour mill which took a while but was perfect for turning it into flour. If you were to do it fresh when you wanted to make bread these little mills are fantastic. There's a book I highly recommend reading called Small Scale Grain Raising [1] that has a lot of good tips, and ways to do this kinda stuff. In this book they recommend using a leaf shredder or wood chipper which would be incredibly effective. [1] https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raising/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/small-scale-grain-raisi...

schoen 2y ago
How did that boulevard end up planted with edible wheat?
- lm28469 2y ago
  I'd be more worried about how polluted it is
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    You are not going to believe what they use to harvest and deliver wheat
    - SECProto 2y ago
      I would suggest that the edge of a typical busy boulevard features 10-30 thousand vehicles per day, whose brake and tire particles in particular end up in the soil around the road. Typical farm fields might see 30,000 trips over the span of what, 100 or 1000 years? It's not in any way comparable to an urban roadway.
    - CuriousCosmic 2y ago
      I think it's a bit of a different comparison given that there's probably some accumulation of lead from decades of leaded gasoline from urban traffic. Obviously still worth doing but it'd be interesting to see whether remediation of some kind would be worth while.
- greetings 2y ago
  It was erosion control after some new road work. I sorta suspect they did bring in new dirt for it as well. I do only use it in small amounts. Not really gonna make a difference over time in terms of pollution/heavy metals. But it was still a worthwhile project.
giantg2 2y ago
I did a small patch of wheat and barley. I also malted it to make my own beer. I just used a box fan for winnowing. I built a 5 gallon bucket thresher to use with a drill. Worked really well. I'm doing winter wheat this year for bread.

dheera 2y ago

> are a dead-end genetically Is this on purpose or a technical limitation? Can we create a new plant that (1) tastes good (2) is not a genetic dead end (3) is easily spread to other farms by squirrels and birds (4) low maintainence, and put an end to this DRM? I mean it would be kind of nice if there existed a forest full of food that nobody had to maintain. > they are paying to support the continued cultivation of those varieties The plants are living beings, if they are allowed to behave like living beings without being crippled, perhaps the varieties will continue to exist naturally without said support.

groby_b 2y ago
> The plants are living beings, if they are allowed to behave like living beings without being crippled, perhaps the varieties will continue to exist naturally without said support. Alas, there are too many humans for that. So, either you support the plants, or one of us has to give - plants or humans. Humans aren't known for giving in, which means slim odds for unsupported plants.
- meristohm 2y ago
  Yeah, this tendency of ours (and life in general- look how invasive species can flourish without much predation) to take what we can has gotten us in trouble now that we have so many resources available to us. Unpopular and I'm not sure how unethical, and likely dead on arrival in congress, but rrgulating the extraction of resources, including and especially petroleum, is one way. Needs to go hand in hand with culture shift to be effective, though; enough of us have to realize the harm we're doing and opt for a better (as in, more respectful of the future of diverse life on earth) way to live.
MostlyStable 2y ago
I meant dead end in the sense that their genes aren't going anywhere. 90+% of home gardeners don't save seeds, and the few that do are almost certainly not preserving the strains they think they are since, most gardeners grow multiple varieties at the same time that are all getting cross pollinated. It was not meant to imply anything about the viability of the strain they are growing, many of which are fantastic heirlooms that have been around for generations.

smackeyacky 2y ago

I can't see it's possible to grow a useful amount of wheat for a single family without a decent sized plot and a large amount of labour. Most modern varieties rely on a lot of fertiliser as well. Wheat is more or less useless for the home gardener and has been for 200 years.

anon84873628 2y ago
https://books.google.com/books/about/Homegrown_Whole_Grains.html?id=qeqhpKRKsB4C&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/Homegrown_Whole_Grains....