Project Overview
Annual Reports
Information Products
Commodities
- Agronomic: general grain crops
Practices
- Crop Production: crop rotation
- Education and Training: extension, farmer to farmer, on-farm/ranch research
- Production Systems: organic agriculture
Proposal summary:
DESCRIPTION
Anne Ongstad, Robinson, ND: The Whitman Ranch is a 13,500 acre operation in the rolling prairie of central North Dakota. Approximately 4000 acres are in certified organic production of flax, wheat, buckwheat, millet, sunflower, alfalfa, and oat/pea hay. The rest of the acres are in pasture and used for uncertified beef production. I am a member of the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Farm Breeding Club, a member of the North Dakota Department of Agriculture Organic Advisory Board, and a member of the Advisory Board for the North Dakota State University Central Grasslands Research Extension Center. I have taken part in cooperative evaluations of wheat varieties under organic management and had a SARE Farmer Rancher Grant to investigate reduced tillage organic production.
Rick Mittleider, Tappen, ND: R&C Mittleider Farms Inc. is a certified organic family farm that includes my wife and I along with our three grown children and their spouses. We raise wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, lentils, hairy vetch, yellow sweetclover, and alfalfa. Our acreage varies depending on rental availability, but we usually have from five to six thousand acres in production with 4500-5000 acres in crops with the rest in legumes for soil building. I helped out my Soil Conservation District on an organic no-till project that they wanted to try this summer and have been collaborating with NDSU on hairy vetch variety trials. Steve Zwinger and I have been talking about how to get improved buckwheat for organic farmers for several years now.
Wayne Mittleider, Tappen, ND: Mittleider Organic Farms varies in size annually as our cow herd and land rental availabilities vary. We manage about 5000 acres with our son and a fair amount of that is rented. We raise oats, wheat, rye, corn, buckwheat, flax, soybean, and lentil besides hay. Our grain crops are certified organic. Every so often we do our own variety trials for wheat or oats, usually planting out 2-3 varieties in strips across a quarter section, trying to make sure they are planted across different soil types so we get a fair evaluation.
Other team members helping our group in field work and variety trials include Carmen Fernholz at the University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center in Lamberton, MN, Steve Zwinger at the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center, Pat Carr at the NDSU Dickinson Research Extension Center, and Kevin Murphy who is a breeder at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. NPSAS Farm Breeding Club Co-Coordinators Steve Zwinger, Theresa Podoll, and Frank Kutka will assist with outreach efforts and documentation.
PROBLEM/SOLUTION
Buckwheat is an exceptional crop for sustainable agriculture. It mellows the soil and releases phosphorus for later crops. It smothers weeds and protects the soil. Actually, no other crop will control weeds and clean up ground like buckwheat. Fields that have weed issues, even with Canada Thistle, can be brought back into relatively easy management by raising buckwheat for several seasons. Markets for organic buckwheat are currently strong and the seed market has increased with its use in cover crop mixes. However, there have not been new varieties released to the public in thirty to forty years and these public varieties are “running out.” Yields are not really viable economically often times and the vigor of varieties like Manor and Mancan is not good unless you get foundation seed. They also do not ripen evenly which reduces the market value of the crop. There are a few new varieties that are closed to the public and can only be grown under contract for resale back to the seed company. We need better buckwheat varieties that are available for us to put to our own uses, including cover cropping.
In the summer of 2012 NPSAS Farm Breeding Club members met representatives of AGROSOYUZ from Ukraine who came to North Dakota to find out how we manage crops and to attend trade shows. They have provided the NPSAS Farm Breeding Club with two kilograms each of two of their favorite varieties which are large seeded and determinate in their growth. These could be just what we need for organic production and cover cropping, but we need to increase the seed in isolation from other buckwheat varieties and with specialty equipment that is small enough and very easy to clean out (our equipment is just too big). Then we need to evaluate the Ukrainian varieties along with existing varieties across the region. We will also need to let other farmers know what we found, how to get seeds, and why buckwheat is so important.
TIMELINE
Summer 2013:
1) Steve Zwinger will plant and harvest the seed grown by Anne Ongstad and Rick Mittleider (one isolated variety each) with an experiment-sized planter and combine. A backup increase will be carried out by Kevin Murphy in Washington as insurance against getting hailed out. We expect to produce about 70 pounds of seed of each variety.
2) We and other Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Farm Breeding Club (NPSASFBC) members and coordinators will visit our increase plots to look over the varieties for preliminary evaluation and to take photos for posting on our website and on Facebook.
Summer 2014:
1) Anne Ongstad and Rick Mittleider will plant and harvest the varieties grown in isolation with the AC60 combines owned by NPSAS Farm Breeding Club. We expect to produce about 1200 pounds of seed of each variety.
2) Steve Zwinger, Pat Carr (Dickinson, ND), Carmen Fernholz (Lamberton, MN), and Kevin Murphy (Pullman, WA) will conduct small plot evaluations of the Ukrainian varieties and three other checks on our farms and at their locations (six locations, five entries, four replications).
3) Rick Mittleider will host a public field day at his farm near Tappen, ND. NPSAS-FBC members and coordinators will collect interviews, photos, and video clips for posting online.
Fall 2014:
1) We and other members and coordinators of the NPSAS Farm Breeding Club will meet in Tappen, ND to discuss the success of the Ukrainian varieties and how we want to manage the seed if their performance supports public release. Seed will also be sent to USDA for public distribution via the National Plant Germplasm System.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH.
The Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Farm Breeding Club evaluated several wheat varieties and released to the public a variety that we called FBC-Dylan via a SARE Farmer Rancher Grant (FNC05-591: Farmer-Led Development and Commercial Release of an Improved Hard Red Spring Wheat Variety). This experience demonstrated our ability to work successfully in collaboration with our public agricultural universities to evaluate crop varieties and release new varieties. We have not done this with buckwheat before so this project would be a huge leap forward.
LNE05-214, “Reestablishing the use of Buckwheat as a Precise Weed Control Tool”, looked carefully at methods for using buckwheat for weed control but did not consider varietal differences. This was also the case for FNE10-698, “Buckwheat Hay-A Quality Feed for Dairies in the Northeast?”, LNC00-168, “Phosphorus Mobilization and Weed Suppression by Buckwheat”, GS07-057, “Optimizing Buckwheat Use as a Weed Suppressive Cover Crop for Sustainable Systems in Florida”, EW98-009, “Alternative Crops for Dryland Agriculture in the Intermountain Pacific Northwest”, and many of the 145 projects that mention the term buckwheat. GNC10-126, “Buckwheat Cover Crops on Wisconsin Vegetable Farms…” did compare two species of buckwheat. Our proposed project goes well beyond all of these, comparing basic characteristics of common buckwheat varieties and two varieties that have not been evaluated in North America. A web search finds many buckwheat variety trials in North America but none with these new Ukrainian varieties (Devyatka and Dykul). For information on them one must look to evaluations in Russia and these studies did not compare them with the varieties we have been using here on the northern plains (Manor and Mancan). This proposed project represents something new for us and for SARE.
OUTREACH
We will invite other NPSAS-FBC members to an initial field day in the summer of 2013 to visually evaluate the new varieties and to take photos for posting on the NPSAS FBC webpage and Facebook page.
We will invite the public to a field day in the summer of 2014 to look at the research plots at Rick Mittleider’s farm near Tappen, ND and to discuss buckwheat and its importance. We will collect photos for posting on our webpage and Facebook page from these plots and from our university collaborators. FBC Coordinators will collect video clips for posting a video on YouTube about buckwheat, its importance, and why we need new varieties.
We will meet with other NPSAS-FBC members in the fall of 2014 to discuss what we will do with the varieties now that we have a reasonable seed supply and the performance data. Our aim is to make seed available if it is suitable and an improvement over our current, older varieties.
EVALUATION
Our university collaborators will help us carry out the initial seed increase by providing small-scale equipment that we lack and also by helping us to carry out replicated small plot evaluations. The collaborators will also conduct their own small plot evaluations to give us a regional perspective. They will take photos of the plots and provide us and the public with the data from organic and conventionally managed plots. They will measure yield, seed counts, lodging, days to flowering, and take notes on maturity, weeds, canopy cover, etc. We will also take notes about the plots on our farms. This will be our primary tool for assessing whether the new varieties can improve the sustainability of our organic farms and for those who use buckwheat as a cover crop. We will use the data to predict potential income increases and other impacts which will be discussed at our final meeting and posted on the NPSAS FBC website and Facebook page.
We will also assess the varieties during our field days where farmers will examine, evaluate, and discuss the varietal traits needed for organic production and cover crop purposes. We will document this with photographs and video that will be posted online with the help of FBC staff.
Going forward and beyond our project, we will meet with other NPSAS-FBC members to discuss the importance of our findings and consider making the seed of promising new varieties available to the public via FBC seed sales. We will also provide samples of each variety to the USDA National Plant Germplasm System for breeders and other growers to use.
Project objectives from proposal:
Our University collaborators will help us carry out the initial seed increase by providing small-scale equipment that we lack and also by helping us to carry out replicated small plot evaluations. The collaborators will also conduct their own small plot evaluations to give us a regional perspective. They will take photos of the plots and provide us and the public with the data from organic and conventionally managed plots. They will measure yield, seed counts, lodging, days to flowering and take notes on maturity, weeds, canopy cover, etc. We will also take notes about the plots on our farms. This will be our primary tool for assessing whether the new varieties can improve the sustainability of our organic farms and for those who use buckwheat as a cover crop. We will use the data to predict potential income increases and other impacts which will be discussed at our final meeting and posted on the NPSAS FBC website and Facebook page.
We will also assess the varieties during our field days where farmers will examine, evaluate, and discuss the varietal traits needed for organic production and cover crop purposes. We will document this with photographs and video that will be posed online with the help of FBC staff.
Going forward and beyond our project, we will meet with other NPSAS-FBC members to discuss the importance of our findings and consider making the seed of promising new varieties available to the public via FBC seed sales. We will also provide samples of each variety to the USDA National Plant Germplasm System for breeders and other growers to use.