There's a lot of chatter about the wheat supply right now. What are your options if it is suddenly not available for human food or animal feed for those of us with livestock? I'm working on a small piece of property. Gene Logsden's Small Scale Grain Raising is supposed to be a wealth of information.

Growing your own wheat? I've never tried it, but it's supposed to have a decent yield for the space it takes up.

Corn? I just finished a couple books by Carol Deppe. (Try your library. Mine had both.) The first was Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties and the second was The Resilient Gardener. They both have quite a bit of information about growing and preparing flour and flint corns. Corn is probably my first choice of a grain for eating because I have a mill that will make a decent corn meal, but not a fine flour mill. I feed the stalks to my rabbits, but I think they get more from the early sweet corn stalks than the dried out field corn stalks.

Oats? I grow a spring oat as a cover crop. I cut it and feed it as hay to the rabbits, but the birds will eat the grains too. I have no way to make it into an acceptable human food. There are hull-less varieties though.

Amaranth? I've grown a little in the past. I put this in front of the house as a flower. I feed it to the animals. I'll probably grow more of it this year.

Sunflowers? I'm putting in a few more rows of these, since everything loves them.

Millet, etc? I'm planting a bit of bird seed and saving the seed heads of the different grains if I can get to them before the birds. That's more of an experiment than anything else.

Rice? It's supposed to yield well, but requires a bit of work. I haven't tried it yet.

You can technically make flour out of just about anything you can grind fine enough, but it might not make a good bread.

I'm trying to find Bocking 4 comfrey for animal feed, which is supposed to have a higher protein content than other varieties. It's tougher to get than the sterile 14, apparently. Protein is quickly becoming the next limiting factor for me. Just producing the bulk of my animal feed with stuff like mangel beets and corn stalks is tough. Those have virtually no protein and might keep my animals alive, but I'm wasting my time if all I can do is keep them from starving. I need them to produce. It also doesn't make sense to dedicate much space to growing palatable grains to feed the animals instead of eating that myself.

What are your potential back-ups if the wheat supply dries up? What can you grow, or what foods do you substitute in your diet?

Kayleigh

we grow buckwheat,amaranth,corn,and quinoa. this year we are adding wheat. we also may try some barley.
we also harvest acorns every year to add to the mix of grains. while not technically a grain the flour will suffice..

I am unable to grow much of anything, and am putting my Troy-Bilt tiller up for sale.
The reason is inability to operate it any more, and what little I can do, I do with a Mantis tiller, and containers.

We have a acre and a half here, and we are pretty much confined to long term storage
supplies to round off the sharp edges of spotty supply if that should come.

With all things considered, being of Appalachian descent, we would most likely use corn as a substitute.

I recently have read that the pathologies associated with the deep South, and low IQ, Rages, dental problems, obesity etc. are caused by a Amino acid which is available in cornmeal, but in an
form that is indigestible to humans.

However, that same grain, feeds millions in Mexico and South America, who have none of these problems, because they treat the corn with lime water, which frees the amino acid for use by your body.

I will later post a little more info on this subject from the source where I read it later.

Kayleigh
I have wanted to do mangle beets this yr as an additive to the critters. Never really thot about wheat but I spose I can find some space to put a trial crop.. would be nice. My prob is, no dirt.. this was all bush 2 yrs ago, so I,ve had to go scrounging for dirt on the sides of forest roads.. I bring it home and it goes into raised beds (no garden).. but its surprizing what can be grown in beds and pots. last yr i had peppers (blistering hot) from peru, and lotsa tomatoes from justa small bed.
There was a tree trimming company for the hydro, around last yr. I asked what they did with their woodchips. they said "we just dump it out on the bushroads".. needless to say, they started bringing it to me. less travel for them and nobodys gonna whine. I figger next yr, it should be composted and when added with my chikken manure, will be great.

Potaoes is gonna be a challenge for me but I,m thinking of walled containers..They grow up and I add another board as well as dirt and keep going.. very little space used.

One thing I did last yr , was the make a stairway of beens. the beans were in these 4ft long 12" wide beds. The beds were put on an old shoe rack the cascaded in steps.. Each container had its own shelf above the other.. just like steps. easy to water and easy to pick. no bending over.

I recently bot wheat..50lbs $14. I have small hand powered grinder and I make my own bread. I also ground up some 15 bean soup mix..I use that as a thicker for my bean soups. other veggies(dried) can be ground also..even corn. The area that I hunt deer, is covered in scrub oak and white oak and many millions of acorns.. this fall i will go back and harvest..Even if the nuts are too strong for me, the critters here will eat them..protein.

cheers

One mistake I made when I planted 50 pounds of Kennebec potato ''seed potatoes''. I dug a trench to plant them in, and pulled the dirt up on the plants as they grew higher.
This can be easier done with lighter materials, such as wood chips, Leaves, or straw.
The potatoes grow above the level at which you planted, so and the new potatoes feed from the level you planted them in. Keep them covered up or they will turn green and have to be discarded.
There are free articles available at backwoodshome magazines website, about container grown potatoes. Feed them until they begin to flower, and then lay off the high nitrogen fertilizer which encourages top or green growth.
Use fertilizer then low in the first number, and higher in the other 2.
Beware of fresh manure of any kind, (except rabbit dung) or your crop will be scabby.

My yield from a 50 pound bag of seed potatoes? 600 pounds, with a single potato over 6 pounds.
Sorry for the thread drift

I did a little research and am sure that any information you gleaned from the web is superior to mine.
Here goes anyway.
Making green stems and corn stalks while still green into silage is an option on the homestead.

Although it does not increase the nutrient level of the plant matter ensiled, it does increase the digestibility and utilization of nutrient by ruminants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silage

Another key to the puzzle could be the sprouting of grains which is vastly superior to any grain, for man or beast.

Sprouted grains as fodder

Fodder in the form of sprouted grains and legumes can be grown in a small-scale environment. Sprouted grains can greatly increase the nutritional value of the grain compared with feeding the "raw" (ungerminated) grain to stock. Sprouted barley and other cereal grains can be grown hydroponically in a carefully controlled environment. Under hydroponic conditions, sprouted fodder at 150 mm tall with a 50 mm root mat is at its peak for animal feed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silage

Another helpful link.
http://www.agricultureguide.org/fodder- ... d-article/

I think that the corn with limewater is nixtamalized? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

We are going to put in a lot more potatoes next year if I get the small sloping portion of my yard terraced. The nice thing about potatoes is that they are (slightly) less attractive to deer and rabbits. Anything that can go outside of a fence is good. My property was actually the original home built on a large potato farm, but it was divided up and sold off decades ago. At least I know we are a good spot for potato-growing! I'd love to try some of the neat techniques like hilling with straw, but I'd lose every potato to a plague of slugs and mice and moles. I want to hear how hilling them with boards works out. It sounds similar to how you blanch celery.

I glanced a little bit at some different sites that google pulled up for rabbits and silage. I didn't think they'd be able to eat it, but a few studies talk about it. I'll have to look at it more when I get the time. It won't help the rabbits, but I had a "duh" moment for feeding the poultry. I found the biggest, scariest looking maggots ever in our compost heap last year. They turned out to be Black Soldier Fly larvae. It took me a few weeks to realize what they were, but I'd heard people talk about them for composting and farming kind of like red wiggler worms. I had forgotten all about that. If I feed those to the birds, that would go a long way toward taking care of their protein needs in the summer. I'll gag, but they'll love it. I stop short at dehydrating them to feed during the winter though!

I also discovered that we had an extra 30' of welded wire fencing. I'll be cutting that into two 15' sections for my winter squash and cucumbers and melons to ramble over. I know that the Butternut squash will do well, because they've accidentally trellised themselves before. I always cram everything too close together anyways. This time I will have an excuse for it. Hopefully that will provide some extra heft for my meals this winter.

I think I'll also read a little more about triticale. It's a stabilized hybrid between wheat and rye. I don't know if I have the right climate for it, but I'll try anything once or twice.

Kayleigh

We farm in grain/potato/canola country.

Animal feed with protein would be cured high protein hay, the whole corn or sunflower plant, including the seed, chopped, and if you can grow it easily turnips (an Appalachian original animal feed).

Very small acreage cereals are difficult and labor intensive, unless you can get them custom harvested and cleaned. I generally think that for a group of homesteaders wanting to produce some grains, an equipment coop or a harvest bee for the grains would be the only sane way to do it. It was actually done that way until mechanical equipment was developed.

There are mole thumpers that are rumored to work for moles in crops; I have seen them advertised at Lee Valley. I hill with dirt which keeps mice out and we have few slugs. Flax straw is generally mouse and mole proof and does not provide much habitat for slugs either. Flax straw is a little like steal wool and takes about 20 years to compost.

I had always thought that turnips had about the same protein content as beets. They don't!

If anyone else wants to look, here's what I found. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/turnip.html

I always grow a lot of turnips for us. The seed place I always buy from lists a few different kinds of turnips and rape and mixtures for pasture and deer plots. I'll have to see what they have when I'm out that way next time.

we have turnips growing 12 months out of the year here.. the winter patch will generally die back through the coldest month or so as we dont try and protect them,but they come back gang busters as soon as the weather breaks a little.

we have found even here in zone 6b we can grow lots of stuff year round with the aid of tarps and blankets during the coldest spells.. but i digress,,carry on..