Crops
Our fall-planted Warthog wheat is loved by bread bakers and beer brewers, who use it malted, or unmalted for Heffewiezens. In cooperation with NYC Greenmarket, it was trialed at the French Culinary Institute in a bread-baking test and scored highest by a panel of distillers, food-writers, bakers, and chefs as the winter wheat with the best baking qualities and flavor. It forms the backbone of our winter wheat acres.
Danko rye is originally from Poland and is a true milling-type rye. Most ryes grown in the Northeast are cover-crop varieties and have small seeds with a high bran-to-starch ratio, making them a poor choice for baking, malting, and distilling, but Danko has large, plumb, blue-green berries with a good flavor balance between bready and spicy. It is a favorite among beer makers and distillers, and has featured prominently at the Brewer’s Choice event in New York City. Bakers love it for producing authentic European-style rye breads. Agronomically, Danko rye also does well on our soils.
This pastry wheat is fall planted, and its white bran gives the whole grain a very sweet flavor. It is a traditionally grown New York State winter wheat and is well adapted to our climate. It is good for pastry baking and producing all-purpose flour. In distilling, it excels in producing high yields of smooth-tasting alcohol due to its sweet, soft starchy qualities and easy milling.
Our varieties of flint-type, dent corn are great for cornmeal, polenta, and tortillas, and are also used for making various whiskeys and moonshine. Varieties have been chosen for their good agronomical qualities in an organic system and for their consistent food-grade performance, high oil content, and excellent flavor. For example, Valley Malt uses our corn for its candy corn character and deep cornbread aroma.
Our Glenn spring-planted hard wheat is the ultimate in high quality for bread baking. Because of its high protein content and excellent gluten qualities, hard red spring wheat makes up the bulk of the wheat used in our artisan bakery flours at Farmer Ground Flour. In a baking and sensory test at Cornell University and Wide Awake Bakery, Glenn showed itself to have the best overall baking score. This, coupled with its outstanding performance in the field, makes it a real winner for us.
Buckwheat, one of the most beautiful crops we grow, makes good flour and good soil. A pseudo-cereal, this plant is not related to small grains, in spite of having “wheat” as part of its name. Our Culver VNS buckwheat has been grown in Tompkins County since before 1847, and therefore is highly adapted to our climate. During the early 1900s, this area was a principal buckwheat growing region, and boasted the largest number of honey-bee hives in the US. It is used in our rotation as a disease-break crop, soil conditioner and a weed suppressor, and many farmers buy our seed to use as a cover crop. The benefits from harvesting its seeds are almost secondary to supporting our agricultural ecosystem. A highly nutritious flour, it is used for pancakes, crepes, and breads, to which it gives a nutty, earthy flavor. It is also used by innovative maltsters and brewers.
Clover is another non-grain cover and break crop that’s essential in our organic production process. As a legume, it helps build soil, fix free nitrogen for our wheat and corn, and condition and improve soil tilth. We harvest clover for hay and silage: its high protein makes it an excellent dairy feed that helps produce superior milk. We also harvest and sell clover seed to other farms to use in their rotations. Clover is the cornerstone of our organic soil fertility management.
We grow soybeans as part of the crop rotation for our local organic dairy farmers. We have been successfully experimenting with no-till roll down rye soybean production with good results so far! Notice the weed-free rye mulch under the beans in the photo.
