Can I ask for a bit of help from my friends here? [View all]

I have been helping revive an heirloom wheat called Sonora since 2000. A wonderful woman got the 25 seeds from the seed bank and grew it up and then increased it on my farm. Her work is trying to get people to eat whole grains and she felt that the older heirloom varieties have better flavor as a whole wheat.

I fell in love with this wheat back then. I even bought my own grinder and began eating it exclusively. It tastes nothing like whole wheat and people with gluten intolerances can eat it without problem, even though it does have some gluten. It is a golden wheat, not a hard red high protein wheat. Turns out it was the first wheat variety brought to the new world from Europe by ships from Portugal before Columbus- apparently many ships sailed west and just stayed the only traces of the voyages are in the seeds they brought here.

It has the root system of a perennial which means that it is capable of producing a crop without any additional water or fertilizer and it sequesters way more carbon than the modern high yielding wheats. But it has the same low yield (high flavor) no matter what.

I took a big risk this year and decided to pay my neighbor to break up a very hard hardpan formed from when the farm was owned by other people (13 years ago) who grew alfalfa. It is costly, but something that I should have done when I first got the farm, but did not have the money to do it, plus I hoped that in time the soil would open up. My plan was to open the soil up, plant the entire 30 acres to this wheat, let my sheep graze it when it first came up and then allow the wheat to head up and have the grain crop.

But we are having a drought out here. The soil was prepared, we waited months for the first rain to let the weeds come up- my farm is organic, so no herbicides, this is how one gives the wheat plants a chance to grow without weeds competing. It rained at last, weeds came up, disced and then planted right after Christmas when a huge rainstorm was predicted.....but the storm gave us no rain....it finally rained Jan 21-23- a wonderful rain- the perfect rain, slow and steady and light at first, allowing the soil to absorb every heavy drop that came later. Since then the weather has been perfect for germination- downright warm somedays.

I look and look for sprouts, but there are very few, I keep hoping that they will come up, but now I worry that perhaps when we planted there may have been enough moisture in the soil for the seeds to have begun to sprout, but then without enough moisture, they died. Or the seeds were too close to the surface and birds ate them all......there are some sprouts, but not very many.....I also planted most of the seeds that I had.

And so I am scared that I will have lost this crop- and thus lost my seed line that I have had going on my farm for 11 years now....when things fail, it is hard to take ....and so, I am asking for help from my friend here. Can you send good energy to the seeds that may still have a chance to sprout? Those that have not been eaten? Any seeds that can still make it? Or if the crop is a failure, ideas of what to do?

I may still have time to try to broadcast more seeds before a small rainstorm comes next Tuesday......but is it time to just give up on it this year and save the few bags of remaining seed for next year and just plant a small plot and take extra good care of it? Did I do the wrong thing trying to open up the hardpan? It is a bit controversial, this deep plowing. I am generally against it and kind of got talked into it....It seems like a very rough thing to do, but compacted soil makes it very hard fro plants to grow in- even this tremendous wheat and my other crops.....

Everyday I say- maybe more will sprout today....but so far, they are still very few and far between.

On the good side- all sorts of people grow this wheat now. One of my customers bought tons of it from me and donated it to First Nation Farmers all over the southwest- and southeast as it was the wheat grow by their people. It is revived and there are over 30 people now growing it. If I lose it on my farm, it is only my personal loss as it is out and about again, which of course was the original goal.

But I love it and my chickens love it and I think that it is very good to grow on my farm.....anyway. That is it.

Thank you in advance for any prayers, energy, light, hopes and dreams.