Grow it! Grain
(Page 8 of 11)
November/December 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
TYPES
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Dakold. For the coldest regions, such as Montana and the Dakotas. Rosen. Middle-temperature regions. Abruzzi. For the southern parts of the country.
SEEDING
Pick a variety suitable to your region. Growing Abruzzi up north, for instance, can lead to almost total crop failure...except, of course, rye is never a total flop, since there will always be something there to plow under as green manure.
Rye, like wheat, is sown about the time of the average first and last killing frosts of fall and spring, respectively. The exception to this is winter rye sown for pasture or for green manure, in which cases it should be planted a month earlier. Planting for green manure requires more seed than planting for grain, since you're after the succulent matter rather than the flour. For manure, use up to two bushels per acre; for grain, three to six pecks, depending on the moisture in your region. The wetter the weather is apt to be, the more seed you can plant on a field. In the same vein, the moister the ground, the shallower the seeding, the usual range being half an inch to two inches. Seeding deeper than you need to reduces the yield.
HARVESTING
Rye, like oats and wheat, is also harvested when the seed is in the dough stage. Treat the same as you do wheat, including milling. But remember, if you have a field of wheat and one of rye, the rye will ripen up to a week earlier.
SORGHUMS
One doesn't hear much about sorghums in the city, probably because you can't serve sorghum on the cob. Essentially, this crop is the more arid farm's corn. It's not that sorghums need any less water than corn...it's just that they can extract it from the soil more efficiently and are more drought-resistant. If you live in a dry part of the country, many around you will no doubt be growing sorghums. But avoid the crop if you can. Sorghums contain prussic acid, and while careful preparation will make good silage of it, pasturing on it, unless you're absolutely certain no young plants are present, will often kill the livestock. Poorly prepared silage will do the same. Sorghum hay causes no problems, since the prussic acid is removed in curing. But along with their other drawbacks, sorghums are hard on the land, so why get involved?
SUNFLOWERS
Usually considered a forage crop, the sunflower is not a grain, and is included here because I happen to like eating sunflower seeds almost as much as corn on the cob. So do chickens, and it makes as good a poultry feed as any of the grains. In some parts of the country sunflowers are used for silage. However, they give it a resinous taste not favored by livestock. For this reason it is disguised for them as molasses silage. Grow some sunflowers for yourself and the chickens. A field of eight-foot-high sunflowers, with the flowers themselves up to a foot in diameter, is a fabulous sight.
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