So I am going to grow wheat organically?

I know several that used fish waste here, trucked in from the coast as back hauls when hauling cannery corn waste over there for silage for their dairy cows. Stinks as bad as chicken litter. People sure complained. It has to be buried deep and be mixed in the soil well or it can burn seedlings pretty bad....James

When our neighbors were buying everything organic the prices were high and they didn't seem to be very effective. You were paying high prices for the term organic.

Perhaps you are looking in the wrong places. You are probably a commercial farmer. If so organic is beyond what you would pay. I get all the organic compost from a close by town for free. All I can haul home, too. They will load me for $10 for bout every 3-6 yards, depending on the loader they are operating that day. They will load all the unprocessed material for free. It just has to set about a year unless I work it. The trash must be screened out of it. For its value $7 a cubit foot. I am very happy to screen it and return the trash to their dumpster. That is about 30 gallons for every 50 cu yards. Had it tested and it needs nothing for production. It is made from 100% city yard waste and tree trimmings. The summer stuff has lots of grass and the winter mix has lots of leaves. I like the latter better.


Maybe you should read the compost sticky thread. A real eye opener.

Compost it. I have road kill deer in my pile.

How do you know what is in the city yard waste? Lots of people with beautiful yards use chemicals, and plenty of them. I don't think the stuff from the dump would be called organic, even if they ask people not put contaminated grass clippings in them.

It takes 2 semi loads to the acre of fish waste. If you had a neighbor within 5 miles and the wind blew their way you would not be a good neighbor, it has to be worked in the same day, it stinks so bad. You ever been around chicken litter applied while raining? It will gag a maggot and burn your eyes in a cab tractor with air conditioner that just recirculates (takes in no outside air). Fish waste is worse....James

Interesting discussion here.

Not that I know anything about growing organic wheat, but it brought to mind this video about cover crops and no-till farming:

http://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/...No-Till-System

The farm I manage does not grow hundreds of acres of grain.. (farm is only 165 ac total) we do on average 20-30 acres a year that goes right back into our poultry feed business. It is done organically and we do average right around 30-40BU/ac. I replied to your post a couple pages ago. Organics rely heavily on crop rotation, compost/animal manure applications, and green manure cover cropping. It does mean that land is not as financially productive as other farms, but inputs are often lower as well. We utilize stale seed beds to minimize pests, weeds for our row crops, and rotate those every year with grain crops, pastures, or hay fields depending on where that field is in the crop plan rotation. Cover crops are plowed down for green manure, grazed off first by cattle (then plowed down), or mowed and baled up.

I believe that on your scale of 400 acres it CAN be done, but it will take more time than just one season to make it finanically productive for you. y'ou say it was in hay, how does that field look over the season, what kind of weed pressure, fungus or bacterial issues w/ the grasses/legumes?

Here in PA/MD there are 200+ ac organic grain farms that do just fine... I can look them up again inthe lancaster farming paper for the articles if you want.

As to those attacking dale for this post, meh, farmers are homesteaders too.

As far as sourcing organic fertilizers in Canada, I cannot help you there. I can point you to a number of US based companies, but I doubt they sell that far north...

I'm sure there are some "true believer" idealogues who maintain that organic practices can produce the same yields as conventional, but I'm not sure you'll find many of them on this forum. Try the Democratic Underground discussion board, where you'll have no trouble finding a socialist with a degree in urban planning who can tell you exactly how it is done.

Here, you're likely to find people who, almost by definition, have accepted the fact that their simple, down-to-earth growing methods are not going to make them rich. Here, it's all about quality of life. And when it comes to that, crop yields are only one factor. . .

After 4 pages the lack of response from the resident, self appointed crop production "experts" here on HT speaks volumes for two reasons. First, the "experts" don't know how to raise a crop, but they KNOW those of us that farm are doing it wrong. Second, raising an Organic crop is not as easy as just dropping a seed in the ground.

Note that the help isn't quite as forth coming as in commodity agriculture enterprises. For instance if you grow wheat, your neighbor grows wheat along with everyone in the county. You all have a ready market at the grain elevator. Even the owner of the elevator wishes for high prices so he and everyone local can have a great year. Your market price is set in a far away place and direct competition isn't really a thing. So if you need help your neighbors bottom line isn't affected if you make a good or bad harvest. Info is forth coming.

With organic production it's different. Your in a smaller cash market. Your competing directly against other farmers for piece of a higher price pie. If you come up with a better method, cheaper input, or whatever. You can produce more with less capital and drive the local/regional market price. Organic is a niche market. Your methods can make or break you. If it took you 5 years to find a profitable process, would you give it away?

Lack of responses? I've seen several responses. You may not like or agree with the responses...but they are there. Wheat has been successfully grown for over ten thousand years. Increasing yields by increasing inputs is certainly a viable consideration. I don't consume wheat so I don't have a dog in the hunt.

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek

There is a small community of organic grain growers in my area, and they all work together to share ideas. They've got a decent market, as there's an organic dairy nearby, and several other purchasers. I'm not sure how much wheat is being grown organically...I think they mostly do corn and beans, but I do know they all help each other out.

Most people here are small scale farmers or homesteaders. If you want to do things on a large scale, you should contact groups who are doing that:

http://eorganic.info/

http://www.uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/organic-farming

http://northerngraingrowers.org/grow...orthern-grains
There is a section on wheat grown organically down at the bottom on the page.

There is literally a plethora of information on growing wheat organically. Perhaps start there and apply what you can to your situation.

There is a market for organic wheat, corn, etc. I know horse people who pay double for organically grown oats for their horses.
Here is one such company that sells Organic Horse Feed and of all things, it is in Canada:
http://www.organic-horse-feed.com/products.htm

I pay about double for everything purchased that is organically grown (certified organic). I know it is more work and less crop results, but the profitability is there or people would have stopped years ago doing this. I think the point is you have to approach the concept with a different attitude and mindset. You probably won't get 70 bushels of wheat per acre, but you might get 40 and that wheat will be worth twice what you are getting for the non organic product. If you market it properly to the organic purchasers..it may be worth triple the price you would normally get.

Case in point: I just bought a quart of half and half at 3.69 per quart. Certified organic. The non organic half and half sitting right next to it, was 1.29 per quart.

I buy as much whole food w/o chemical contributions as I can. But then again, I rarely go down the middle of the grocery store aisles either. My doc said long ago, if you can't pronounce, don't eat it. And if it contains more than one word, it is usually not a food. Hence: apple, orange, carrot..lol..I lost 25 lbs. just by remembering that when I shop and discarding all the rest of the processed stuff.

That perception of "wellness" bleeds over into the organic sales. People feel better if they buy products that are not chemically enhanced or grown. or tampered with such as GMO. So if you want to grow your organic wheat..

Sell the idea..health - wellness - preservation of heritage seed..whatever..but do it with the thought that you will likely not be able to get that 70 bushels you want, but will likely make more from your 40 bushels per acre.

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Be yourself - no one can tell you that you're doing it wrong!

One problem you may have in your location is selling and shipping organic wheat.
It can't be taken to the local co-op and mixed with the local grain. Transportation is going to be a problem at harvest as well, or it can be. If you have to sell your organic grain locally, you may not get paid as organic. There is a problem in the mid-west this year moving grain and that is not uncommon. So you could get the worst of both worlds, low yield and lower sale price. It may not be a problem, but I'd want to be sure I knew where 440 acres of wheat is going before I planted it.

I don't understand why people think Dale can't be a homesteader and a professional farmer. If you can be a doctor and homesteader, or a waitress and a homesteader, why can't you be a farmer and a homesteader? It sounds to me like Dale is more of a " homesteader" than many who post on here.

No one ever sells stuff like this. Starting a business takes guts.
Your suggesting one should have sold a product sight unseen, without prior experience, to people they don't know.

Good luck with that!


When starting a business. You plan, you prepare, then you jump. You work really hard and hope for the best. If your lucky you only have to sweat it out for a year or two.

So. After all the posts I hit it just about right. The points I based the first reply to this question on were...... organic, 70 bushel per acre, 440 acres, heritage seed. It was not that I didn't think farmerDale was able to achieve this but that organic growers would fail to offer the advice on how to successfully make a crop, always think that what they do on half acre or dozens rows will work just as well on a 100 or more acres. What was the answer? It seems it can't be done by the response.

Bellcow

He didn't say "sell" he said "know where it was going" there a difference.

If you are going to make the commitment to produce a crop that has the potential grow income of almost $250,000 you want to know you have a market for it.

I don't get that from this thread at all. Can grains be grown organically and profitably? Yes it's actually being done. Is it easy. No, profit never is.

There hasn't been hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants yet. It will come if farmers and consumers want it. So some critical info might be hard to come by. Pretty much how I'd figure it.

Are you expecting someone going to come forward and give the exact methods. I doubt it. Why would they? It's business.

Can enough info be found to get started in the right direction. Sure. Is it a sure thing. Nope. But farming never is.