GROWING GRAINS By: John Vivian

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Corn is a heavy feeder. To help replenish nutrients, till husks, stalks and cobs back in and interplant legumes such as cornfield beans; harvest the dry pods along with the corn. Pull late tillers as they sprout and runty lower ears before they swell.

Let ears dry on the stalk as long as you can. On the stalk or in storage, mature corn will mold and can develop toxic aflatoxins, most particularly from Aspergillus flavus. In the South, and in the North if you are sure they're dry, crib or dry-store ears in the husk to keep out pests.

Wheat

There are two kinds of wheat. Soft wheat is traditionally a southern crop. It lacks gluten and is best for cakes and biscuits. Hard, red wheat is bread wheat and is grown primarily in cooler areas.

Either kind can be planted as "winter wheat" in September and harvested from late May in Texas to July 21 in the North. In the far northern tier, it is better planted as "spring wheat" between February and April and harvested in June and July.

Sowing rates vary between two to eight pecks per acre and doubling the rate or better is often recommended, especially if broadcast and not raked in. (A peck is eight quarts or one quarter of a bushel and weighs about 15 pounds.) But the thinner the sowing rate, the more tillers (secondary stems) are produced. Yield varies more with rainfall and temperature. A sowing rate of six pecks per acre is a good starting point.

Unless you live in wheat-growing country, you'll rarely experience significant pest problems if you rotate every year and use varieties bred to be resistant to locally important problems. The worst disease, stem rust, is an airborne fungus. Eliminating a secondary host, barberry bushes, around your wheat fields can help.

Oats

The common Avena species is a fast-growing cereal grain that is easy to grow and makes great hay and stock feed. But its hull is inedible unless you are a horse and hard to remove without polishing, parching or parboiling. So grow A. nuda (from Johnny's Selected Seeds and others), which needs threshing and winnowing like wheat, but is nearly ...well, nude. In early spring, sow 100 pounds per acre or two to three pounds per 30' x 30' plot. Best in the cool northeast quarter of the U.S. and lower southeast section of Canada, but grows anywhere and can be fall-sown in the South.

Rye and Triticale

Secale cereal and triticale (tri-t-cal'-ee), the more refined cross between rye and wheat, are extremely winter-hardy. They can be sown as late as November and still produce a crop next summer. And they'll tolerate less rain, worse soil and more neglect and abuse than any other grain. Grows so fast it is self-weeding. Plant a locally adapted variety, at two bu/acre or four to ten pounds per 30' x 30' plot.

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