Grow it! Grain
(Page 2 of 11)
November/December 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
BUCKWHEAT
RELATED CONTENT
Buckwheat is easy to grow and a great source of high-quality protein, including who has the varieti...
Healthy, sweet and savory: Recipe for whole-wheat apricot sage breadsticks...
THE HEALTHY PLATE: Recipe for Pumpkin-Cranberry Spice Cake...
In a recent study on the quality of organic wheat vs. conventional wheat, Swiss and Austrian scient...
for 2? fancy January/February 1971 HOW I FEED MY TRIBE OF FIVE A "STICK-TO-YOUR-RIBS" BREAKFAST FOR...
The amount of buckwheat grown in the United States is relatively minor, perhaps 1/2000th that of corn. Still, it's an of, but also because, if you keep bees, the rich dark buckwheat flour makes the kind of country-morning flapjacks you dream of, but also because if you keep bees, the rich dark buckwheat honey you'll get is great on top of those pancakes. The middlings, which is what remains after milling flour, make fine stock feed, and the whole grains are excellent for the chickens. On a commercial scale buckwheat is processed for rutin, a relatively new wonder drug that combats hemorrhage, frostbite, gangrene, high blood pressure, and even to some extent radiation damage.
Buckwheat is a fairly new crop thought to have originated under cultivation in China a thousand years ago. It is an erect herbaceous annual usually reaching a height of three feet or so. The alternate leaves are triangular, varying in length from two to four inches. The single taproot, though it has few branching roots, is nevertheless a very effective extractor of soil nutrients, and the buckwheat plant can avail itself of minerals sometimes unobtainable by wheat, oats, and other grains. It also improves soil conditions more than these. Hence the old saying of some farmers that if the land is too poor to grow anything on, it will still carry buckwheat. It's an ideal crop for a field in need of revitalization.
ADAPTATION
Buckwheat is best grown in the northeastern part of the United States, although its range could probably be extended considerably. If it's not grown in your region, experiment with a small lot, as long as the physical conditions seem appropriate. It does well on most well-drained soil, better in a cool, moist climate, but is susceptible to cold. Since high temperatures and dryness cause the plant to set seeds very poorly, it is usually sown as a fall crop. Liming is not necessary, the plant preferring slightly acid soils.
TYPES
The two main varieties of buckwheat grown for flour are the Japanese and the silverhull, which are often sown mixed. A third variety called common gray is also used with some frequency. Other varieties you may run across are Tartary and Tetraploid; these, however, are grown mostly for rutin production and not for their edible end products.
SEEDING
Drilling is preferred. Use three to four pecks of seed per acre in seven-inch rows, planting twelve weeks before the first expected killing fall frost. This assures that the seeds will set in cool weather. Broadcasting the seed at four to five pecks per acre will probably give you a good enough crop if you don't have a grain drill. You can expect to harvest between twenty and thirty bushels an acre.
HARVESTING
Harvest in late fall just after the first-formed seeds mature. One of the problems with buckwheat is that the seeds on the plant mature at different times; therefore, harvesting is timed to maximize the number of mature seeds. The plants are cut, shocked, and field-dried. Field drying takes about ten days. Then the buckwheat tops are ready to be stored whole for winter fodder - chickens will pick out the seed as you feed it to them - or threshed like wheat if you're planning to mill your own flour.
Page:
<< Previous 1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
Next >>
