Wheat is poised for a comeback, driven by demand from bakers and localvores

August 13, 2007

By Mel Huff
TIMES ARGUS STAFF

SHELBURNE - Only 15 Vermont farms grow wheat today. That's a far cry from the 1850s, when 40,000 acres of cropland from the Champlain Valley to Orleans County produced wheat. The shocks of grain on the state's seal attest to its one-time importance to Vermont's economy.

But according to Heather Darby, the University of Vermont Extension's field crops specialist, wheat is poised for a comeback, driven by demand from artisan bakers and the localvore movement.

This spring, Darby won a sustainable agriculture grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work on reintroducing heritage wheat varieties that were grown in Vermont in the 1800s. She plans to use three cultivars bred by Vermont's premier botanist, Cyrus Pringle, to develop new varieties suited to the state's growing conditions.

Pringle, born in East Charlotte in 1838, achieved international recognition as a plant collector - notably for his botanizing in Mexico. According to Wikipedia, "He is in the top five of historical botanists for sheer quantity of new species discovered - approximately 1,200 new species, 100 new varieties, twenty-nine new genera, and four new combinations."

But Pringle also had a lifelong interest in horticulture: He hybridized new varieties of apples, grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, oats and other crops.

Among them was wheat.

Pringle developed three varieties: Surprise, Champlain and Defiance. "Defiance was the most famous of all three and the most widely adapted across the United States," Darby said. It was the variety most widely grown in Washington State where most of the country's wheat is grown, from the late 1800s into the early 1900s, and is a parent of many varieties used today.

"For almost 50 years, farmers grew Defiance. (Cyrus Pringle) is famous - he actually is considered the father of wheat breeding," Darby said.

"We were able to access some of (Pringle's) wheat varieties because they were registered with the USDA's Germplasm Repository, and they keep samples of all varieties that are registered with them and grow some of them up every year to make sure that the seed stays viable," she told a group attending a workshop at Shelburne Farms Sunday.

Trials of Pringle's varieties are currently underway at Jack Lazor's Butterworks Farm in Westfield, the first organic dairy in the state. Lazor is a highly respected farmer and leader in the state's organic movement.

"We're growing these three in Vermont right now and re-evaluating them and seeing how they're adapted to today's climate, and so far, Surprise is the one we like the best," Darby said.

"The farmers here are really interested in developing their own wheat varieties, bringing back Cyrus Pringle's varieties but improving them," she noted. "We're trying to figure out how good are they and how can we adapt them or breed modern-day varieties into Cyrus Pringle's varieties."

In June, Darby, Jack Lazor and Seth Johnson from Glover went to Washington State University, to learn how to breed wheat and adapt varieties to Vermont's soils and climatic conditions. The goal, Darby and Lazor said in an article they wrote for the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers' Alliance newsletter, is to create a Farmers' Breeder Club - "to breed good varieties that fit our farms and to make use of genetically diverse populations that are often more disease resistant than pure lines are." A related goal is to make it possible for farmers to save their own seed, as they did in the past. "All the seed belongs to somebody else now," Darby observed.

Nineteen varieties of wheat are being tested at Lazor's farm: Cyrus Pringle's three varieties, five heritage wheat varieties from North Dakota, 10 from Washington State, and one widely grown modern variety. After evaluating the varieties for from Washington State, and one widely grown positive and negative characteristics, the newly trained breeders crossed the ones whose characteristics they wanted. They will evaluate and select the most successful offspring and continue breeding.

In the summer of 2008, the breeders will host two field days at Butterworks Farm, the first to pass on to other farmers the wheat-breeding skills they learned in Washington, and the second to teach selection strategies.