Park Wheat

I am honoured to be able to post on this blog. I can see that it may develop into a useful source of information for the growing number of smallholders who wish to venture into successful grain and pulse production on a small scale.

First I guess I should introduce myself. My name is John Schneider. I have been farming most of my life and family generations as far back as we can trace have also been farmers. It has been in the last 10 years or so that I have been focused on organic grain production; heritage breeds of grains and livestock have been my further interest for the past 3 or 4 years. We farm in central Alberta, Canada very near the city of Edmonton.

I thought for my first post I would share with you a little info. on the main grain variety that we currently produce. It is called Park Wheat. It was developed here in Alberta at the Lacombe Research Station back in the 60's. It is far from an ancient grain, but it is what I would call a heritage variety. It is an open pollinated Hard Red Spring that was initially bred to resist rust.

Aside from its resistance to various diseases I have found that it is a very early spring variety and seems to be fairly drought resistant. It is also very high in protein and we have had it range anywhere from 13.5% to 14.5% protein. The falling numbers have varied a little more but generally have been in the 330-350 range. It is a very suitable baking wheat with good dark colouring and a moderately rich taste. Not as dark and rich as something like Marquis or Red Fife, but still pretty good.