Ancient Grains

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Growing ancient grains may seem risky at a time when modern crops have undergone generations of breeding to make them more productive and resilient against pests or disease. But Jade Koyle with Grand Teton Ancient Grains says they are finding that older varieties like einkorn can be just as resilient as modern wheat.

Koyle… “ Eventually, do we eventually get to the point where the einkorn that we're growing is well-adapted to the conditions that it may face here? And I think that there is something really valuable to that is it's constantly exposing it to different growing conditions, and the way that we grow it, and the way that we harvest the seed, or where we harvest the seed from, all those things will ultimately affect it. And so as part of our aim, these are some of the factors that definitely contribute. But, there could arise something that I obviously don't foresee that could happen. And you would say, ‘Well, modern wheat is well-suited for that.’ But in many cases, funny enough, what we're finding is modern wheat is not well-suited for it because modern wheat has been bred to accommodate yield. It's been bred to accommodate baking quality and these factors that obviously are important, but they don't necessarily lend themselves to them being able to continue to exist. And so far that's been our experience, but obviously I haven't been doing it a very long time, so there's a lot to learn there I'm sure.”