Many farmers here in Switzerland grow urdinkel - ancient spelt. In the USA most farmers grew it also until around the 1920s but then a new wheat came out that was easier to process. Spelt has thicker hulls and wears down the mill faster so the mills switched to the new wheat and the farmers all had to switch too.
Based on the name I think ur (ancient) Dinkel (spelt) is even older than regular spelt but I'm not sure. All I know is that it makes great crackers but terrible pasta and ok bread but not great.
Terrible pasta? I solely buy spelt (dinkel) pasta of I can choose.
Maybe you mean it gets more sticky if you cook it too long? But al dente I think it's amazing. It has a nutty taste that works very well with tomatoes if you ask me.
key points about wheat Gross (the Italian farmer) discovered in 1990 his attic:
+ It fared better during droughts, growing so tall that it overshadowed the weeds. It didn’t need fertilizer or herbicides.
+ It's height can be a liability. Heavy winds, rains and hail can make the tall stems flip over before the grain ripens, ruining harvests.
+ Working with the lab of Teofilo Vamerali, Perobelli determined that the grain was Triticum turgidum—literally “swollen wheat” in Latin. Known in English as “poulard wheat,” it had originally evolved in what today are Turkey, Egypt and other nearby Mediterranean countries. And searching agricultural references, Perobelli found that it had been grown in Italy, too, until farmers shifted toward higher-yield commercial varieties. That solved the mystery of the seed bag stashed away in the attic: It had survived because Grossi’s grandfather saved some of the heritage grains.
I know I tend to like some takeaway "summary" comments on HN, but this one just feels like snippets from an LLM reading the article. What's the thinking? The original text isn't particularly long or dense, and this isn't commentary.
It's hand curated verbatim extracts designed to encourage HN members to read the full article. The clickbait title does not provide accurate context for the article which details events from 1990.
Reasonable people may differ and your mileage may vary. What were your key takeaways from the article?
I left out the points about shortcomings of Bourlag's wheat and the value of genetic diversity in a population. But my focus was to encourage people to read an article I found significant.
On a side note I don't use AI to craft HN comments beyond sometimes using Grammarly to check them for basic errors.
Friends of mine found some unknown seeds in a rental they'd just moved into and planted it. When they saw what sprouted they decided they should probably burn the evidence, slowly, one bud at a time.
Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators make wheat shorter and prevent it from buckling and falling over. They aren't the most suspect chemicals, but not exactly above all suspicion neither...
Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators
Or you do what Claudio Grossi did, and you mix the ancient grain with short growing grains that add stability. Sometimes the solution is simpler then just throwing chemicals at the problem.
This is a great practical approach, but when you harvest the crop you get a mix of higher crop and lower crop. It is more difficult to sell some mix than a pure crop with known properties. Technically, it would be possible to build a harvester with two cutters at different heights to separate the crops, but I've never seen one.
You forgot about the height. It will overshadow the smaller crop, and lack of sunlight on this smaller crop may simply not produce any ears as a result. Just a "balcony farmer" but that is what i have seen with most plants that are overshadowed by dense/taller plants.
A good story that touches on this is the Wizard and the Prophet, covering Norman Borlaug's efforts to crossbreed wheat that wasn't too tall, was resistant to blight, etc.
It seems like the genes that cause long stalks also have other benefits, otherwise they'd have been bred out a long time ago. At least that is what I figure.
- move slighly more of the plants energy into the seed
- prevent wind damage. (small farms bordered with trees was more typical historically)
On the historical side;
- The long stalks allow the crop to be bundled and dried without the seed touching the ground.
- It makes the stalks themselves useful as a building material in walls, roofs, isolation, bedding.
- It makes for a good grip as the seeds are pulled form the stalks with an historical thresher.
In short, we didn't start breeding grains to be short until modern post industrial farming techniques. Short grain does provide better yield on industrial mono-crop farming. But would have been seen as worse historically.
Lodging is still a big problem even with modern varieties and growth regulators and even pre-modern wheat plants were probably shorter than they were originally.
These are all just unsubstantiated claims from someone promoting a product. The reason the entire world switched to dwarf varieties is that full height wheat falls over in heavy storms and this can lead to a loss of entire harvests and major famines.
This grain, while interesting, is far far less productive than modern varieties and less efficient to grow. It's valuable for genetic diversity and rediscovering it is wonderful and valuable, but it is more or less worthless for farmers as anything other than a novelty.
It's not really just a storm risk. The higher yeilding your wheat the higher risk of lodging, so growing tall wheat in poorer conditions is fine, but the higher the grain weight the higher the risk of lodging.
Gluten allergies are relatively rare and extreme. People with Celiac have a major, sometimes life threatening reaction to gluten.
People who do not have Celiac and say they are gluten sensitive usually are not. They are either experiencing a nocebo effect or have gas from other components of wheat rather than gluten. Actual non Celiac reactions to gluten are minor if they exist at all. So when someone says they are gluten sensitive it is overwhelmingly likely they either have Celiac and even a very very tiny amount of gluten will cause them horrible consequences, or they are incorrect and they are not sensitive to gluten at all.
20 years ago I was "that guy" who went "uhm, actually, you almost certainly don't have celiac". Alas, my efforts did not stop the trend, and today the nocebo effect for gluten has become a multi-billion dollar racket.
From what I understand, most "ancient" grains had far less gluten; it's the modern variants that have caused the widespread gluten issues we see today.
Planting 600 acres of a single genetically identical grass and blasting them with insecticide and herbicide... kinda already does as much damage one could possibly try to do.
Is it? It seems to describe exactly what happened: a farmer finds a sack of grain in his attic left by his great grandfather and plants them for the hell of it. Interesting things result.
Many farmers here in Switzerland grow urdinkel - ancient spelt. In the USA most farmers grew it also until around the 1920s but then a new wheat came out that was easier to process. Spelt has thicker hulls and wears down the mill faster so the mills switched to the new wheat and the farmers all had to switch too.
Based on the name I think ur (ancient) Dinkel (spelt) is even older than regular spelt but I'm not sure. All I know is that it makes great crackers but terrible pasta and ok bread but not great.
Terrible pasta? I solely buy spelt (dinkel) pasta of I can choose.
Maybe you mean it gets more sticky if you cook it too long? But al dente I think it's amazing. It has a nutty taste that works very well with tomatoes if you ask me.
I personally like spelt in bread. It provides a lot of aroma, especially for doughs that are overnight-leavened in low temperature.
key points about wheat Gross (the Italian farmer) discovered in 1990 his attic:
+ It fared better during droughts, growing so tall that it overshadowed the weeds. It didn’t need fertilizer or herbicides.
+ It's height can be a liability. Heavy winds, rains and hail can make the tall stems flip over before the grain ripens, ruining harvests.
+ Working with the lab of Teofilo Vamerali, Perobelli determined that the grain was Triticum turgidum—literally “swollen wheat” in Latin. Known in English as “poulard wheat,” it had originally evolved in what today are Turkey, Egypt and other nearby Mediterranean countries. And searching agricultural references, Perobelli found that it had been grown in Italy, too, until farmers shifted toward higher-yield commercial varieties. That solved the mystery of the seed bag stashed away in the attic: It had survived because Grossi’s grandfather saved some of the heritage grains.
I know I tend to like some takeaway "summary" comments on HN, but this one just feels like snippets from an LLM reading the article. What's the thinking? The original text isn't particularly long or dense, and this isn't commentary.
It's hand curated verbatim extracts designed to encourage HN members to read the full article. The clickbait title does not provide accurate context for the article which details events from 1990.
Reasonable people may differ and your mileage may vary. What were your key takeaways from the article?
I left out the points about shortcomings of Bourlag's wheat and the value of genetic diversity in a population. But my focus was to encourage people to read an article I found significant.
On a side note I don't use AI to craft HN comments beyond sometimes using Grammarly to check them for basic errors.
What do you mean “what’s the thinking?”
I think the meaning was "why did you write this?"
Friends of mine found some unknown seeds in a rental they'd just moved into and planted it. When they saw what sprouted they decided they should probably burn the evidence, slowly, one bud at a time.
Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators make wheat shorter and prevent it from buckling and falling over. They aren't the most suspect chemicals, but not exactly above all suspicion neither...
Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators
Or you do what Claudio Grossi did, and you mix the ancient grain with short growing grains that add stability. Sometimes the solution is simpler then just throwing chemicals at the problem.
This is a great practical approach, but when you harvest the crop you get a mix of higher crop and lower crop. It is more difficult to sell some mix than a pure crop with known properties. Technically, it would be possible to build a harvester with two cutters at different heights to separate the crops, but I've never seen one.
You just raise the head.
You harvest the top crop, the one you want, cutting above the lower height, then go back through and make a second pass with the head lower.
You'll lose some of the lower crop, crushed under the wheels, but it was there as bonus anyway.
You forgot about the height. It will overshadow the smaller crop, and lack of sunlight on this smaller crop may simply not produce any ears as a result. Just a "balcony farmer" but that is what i have seen with most plants that are overshadowed by dense/taller plants.
A good story that touches on this is the Wizard and the Prophet, covering Norman Borlaug's efforts to crossbreed wheat that wasn't too tall, was resistant to blight, etc.
That’s true in generation 1, but breeding isn’t a single generation. You repeat things across generations until you find a stable mix.
It seems like the genes that cause long stalks also have other benefits, otherwise they'd have been bred out a long time ago. At least that is what I figure.
Short grains are modern;
- allow modern machines to harvest it more easily
- move slighly more of the plants energy into the seed
- prevent wind damage. (small farms bordered with trees was more typical historically)
On the historical side;
- The long stalks allow the crop to be bundled and dried without the seed touching the ground.
- It makes the stalks themselves useful as a building material in walls, roofs, isolation, bedding.
- It makes for a good grip as the seeds are pulled form the stalks with an historical thresher.
In short, we didn't start breeding grains to be short until modern post industrial farming techniques. Short grain does provide better yield on industrial mono-crop farming. But would have been seen as worse historically.
Lodging is still a big problem even with modern varieties and growth regulators and even pre-modern wheat plants were probably shorter than they were originally.
They confer advantage over many weeds according to the article.
Tall wheat fields are a significant plot device in Klara and the Sun. Not to mention the various woody fibers involved in Wicker.
Yes, I spent an interesting week hanging out at the cinema!
These are all just unsubstantiated claims from someone promoting a product. The reason the entire world switched to dwarf varieties is that full height wheat falls over in heavy storms and this can lead to a loss of entire harvests and major famines.
This grain, while interesting, is far far less productive than modern varieties and less efficient to grow. It's valuable for genetic diversity and rediscovering it is wonderful and valuable, but it is more or less worthless for farmers as anything other than a novelty.
It's not really just a storm risk. The higher yeilding your wheat the higher risk of lodging, so growing tall wheat in poorer conditions is fine, but the higher the grain weight the higher the risk of lodging.
This is interesting for people with gluten allergies, maybe there is a way they could one day consume the ancient wheat.
That day could be today: https://www.molinograssi.it/en/retail-line/miracolo-line/
This still contains gluten. It can't be consumed by celiacs.
There are US-based sellers of ancient wheat (both berries and milled flour) as well.
Here's one that I learned about via their YouTube channel
https://mtranchrescue.com/products/7-s-true-whole-wheat-flou...
Gluten allergies are relatively rare and extreme. People with Celiac have a major, sometimes life threatening reaction to gluten.
People who do not have Celiac and say they are gluten sensitive usually are not. They are either experiencing a nocebo effect or have gas from other components of wheat rather than gluten. Actual non Celiac reactions to gluten are minor if they exist at all. So when someone says they are gluten sensitive it is overwhelmingly likely they either have Celiac and even a very very tiny amount of gluten will cause them horrible consequences, or they are incorrect and they are not sensitive to gluten at all.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27523634/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29102613/
20 years ago I was "that guy" who went "uhm, actually, you almost certainly don't have celiac". Alas, my efforts did not stop the trend, and today the nocebo effect for gluten has become a multi-billion dollar racket.
From what I understand, most "ancient" grains had far less gluten; it's the modern variants that have caused the widespread gluten issues we see today.
That's obviously an oversimplification.
Wouldn't this cause ecosystem issues if seeds from 100 years ago get planted in the same area?
Planting 600 acres of a single genetically identical grass and blasting them with insecticide and herbicide... kinda already does as much damage one could possibly try to do.
A slighly taller variety of grass hardly matters.
No these require human cultivation to survive.
I think I saw this movie... :-P
Clickbait title
Is it? It seems to describe exactly what happened: a farmer finds a sack of grain in his attic left by his great grandfather and plants them for the hell of it. Interesting things result.
You're likely basing this on the (better) updated title.. the original included "almost biblical" in the title. Shame mods didn't document the change.
The "almost Biblical" line comes from the fact that - before he knew what variety it was - he read about a similar wheat mentioned in the Bible.
That phrase is actually in the article.
Sure does. And his grandfather surely wasn't in the bible or even 2000 years close to it.. so.. that's one hell of a use of almost.
"Black Plague almost annihilated FIFA 2026 final" is closer historical range than this usage.
Description of ancient grains, meanwhile, reach back into Egyptian and other empires that precede the bible.
It is a pretty terrible title, but the article is interesting
I also found it interesting, and the title pretty much describe what happened? I don’t see the problem
did they copy the Times of India? https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/discovery/italia...