SHTF and Grains

[Neko-chan]

Curious, since someone brough up a livestock in SHTF situations, so I'll extend it to plants:

Assuming SHTF, and you needed to grow your own grains, how much ground do you need to plant to get a worthy crop of wheat/oats/corn/etc.

How do you save the seeds of sweet corn?

I know you have to "thresh" grains, to remove the sheaths and stuff from the kernels, but then what? Do you let them dry?

I'm pretty sure that the long stemmy part can be dried and used as fodder for animals as well.

I know Nikole Tesla is growing grains, but does anyone else know the low down of growing your own grain?

 

[Wifezilla]

I'm a bit of a radical in that I seldom eat grains. I don't consider them to be a good food source. Too many potential problems in a grain based diet. Improperly prepared, they actually CAUSE nutritional deficiency. Wheat consumption is a big indicator of heart disease. I am trying to grow alternative foods so I can get my animals OFF of grains.

Now that being said, I do occasionally enjoy some grilled corn on the cob soaked in butter. Plus grains are easy to store long term. So for corn, I do grow Dutch bantam sweet corn. It is a heritage, open pollinated variety. To save seeds for next year, just leave some big healthy ears on the stalk and let them completely dry out. Then just rub off the kernels off the husk and bag.

I think the most important thing to have in a SHTF scenario is a good, healthy fat source. You can live without grains. You can't live without essential fatty acids. Animal sources are the best, but it is good to have a backup. My backups are amaranth, quinoa, and chufa. As for the animals, they should be eating grasses instead of grains anyway.

 

[Neko-chan]

I'm a bit of a radical in that I seldom eat grains. I don't consider them to be a good food source. Too many potential problems in a grain based diet. Improperly prepared, they actually CAUSE nutritional deficiency. Wheat consumption is a big indicator of heart disease. I am trying to grow alternative foods so I can get my animals OFF of grains.

Now that being said, I do occasionally enjoy some grilled corn on the cob soaked in butter. Plus grains are easy to store long term. So for corn, I do grow Dutch bantam sweet corn. It is a heritage, open pollinated variety. To save seeds for next year, just leave some big healthy ears on the stalk and let them completely dry out. Then just rub off the husk and bag.

I think the most important thing to have in a SHTF scenario is a good, healthy fat source. You can live without grains. You can't live without essential fatty acids. Animal sources are the best, but it is good to have a backup. My backups are amaranth, quinoa, and chufa. As for the animals, they should be eating grasses instead of grains anyway.

My point about the animals is that they can eat the grass part, yeah? Not the actual grain bit.

And thanks for the tip about the corn, because I want to grow some, but I only want to buy that first packet of seed once.

Can you provide some tips about growing amaranth, quinoa and chufa? I've heard of the first two, but have no idea what the latter is, and have never grown any before.

How much do you have to sow to get a good crop?

How do they need to be milled?

 

[freemotion]

Once the seed head matures, the grass part is no longer suitable for food. It is yellow and now called straw and is used for bedding. It gets too woody to be digested and utilized by the animals.

You can, however, cut it as hay before the seed head emerges for some very nice hay. Hay is younger grass that is dried green and has a lot of food value in it.

 

[GOOGLE NIKOLA TESLA]

I'm a bit of a radical in that I seldom eat grains. I don't consider them to be a good food source. Too many potential problems in a grain based diet. Improperly prepared, they actually CAUSE nutritional deficiency. Wheat consumption is a big indicator of heart disease. I am trying to grow alternative foods so I can get my animals OFF of grains.

Now that being said, I do occasionally enjoy some grilled corn on the cob soaked in butter. Plus grains are easy to store long term. So for corn, I do grow Dutch bantam sweet corn. It is a heritage, open pollinated variety. To save seeds for next year, just leave some big healthy ears on the stalk and let them completely dry out. Then just rub off the husk and bag.

what? wheats and oats are for a better heart, thats whats on the cherio boxes lol. they have sustained mankind since the beginning of agriculture. if you look at all the feudalism wheat, oats and grains were huge parts of health.you always see the famous wheat paintings and such for that time. oatmeal sustained one man back in the 1500s that he lived with perfect health till 120 yrs, he only died because the king invited him to a feast on animals and his body could not processs it so he died a horrible death sadly! thats perfect proof of the power of the grains.i take care of many old people who were fed oatmeal as a diet source during the great depression and to mid life, and they are usually the ones with the best health, obviously they didnt eat it at every meal, but they said that was a huge part of depression diet. if oatmeal was spread world wide, it would be a huge health booster to all poor countries. it has a good nutritional equivalent. ill show some more pictures soon, i got all green heads on my wheat and oatmeal, the corn has the male and female portions comming out. i did some cross polination between the corn that has grown so far, so i take some of the male pollen from one corn and drop it on the female part of another, to decrease inbreeding and increase the health of the corn that i will save. this might give you a calender estimate, since i planted this all around the last 2 weeks in april. so there should be about another month on the corn, and probably 2 more months on the wheat and the oats. still i am no expert, but maybe from doing this over the years i will be lol jk. when u collect the seeds, always gather from many crops this decreases the same genetic lines(inbreds), that way you have genetic diversity in the fields and this is an overal health increase for the grain, this is mainly a corn problem because the harvested wheat or oats, mixes quite well.


"seed to loaf" by a man in england, on youtube was the best home process i saw about growing wheat. yea i am no help because this is my first time, but i will try to help the best i can, i just know corn, wheat, and oats are good storage crop with nutrition that can help sustain, and corn along with beans if you want the complete protein equivalents. also saving the mentality of most people is the baking of bread in a long bland diet if it came to this, it increases the happiness when there is no major stores and places to get food. i cant wait to do the whole processs like the english guy did, dry the wheat, thrash the heads, store the grain, grind the seeds into flour, then put it in my bread making machine with the ingredients and have the most real unaltered bread i can ever get! i know all parts of the process and what is in my bread! that would be so much fun lol. so far though, the wheat seems it takes up alot more spaces than it gives in seeds, which is kind of sad, i did plant it in rows, but i could have done it as a field and got a better supply that way. ohh well i am a noob, next years will be really good though. just if you store the grains, make sure its dry, seems the most important part to keep it long term, supposedly it can be years!

 

[Neko-chan]

Thanks free, that's good to know. I know there was a difference between hay and straw, but didn't know if straw was a certain type of grass, or just old grass, or what. Can any grain be used as hay?

Thanks for you input Nikola. Say, how long are your rows of grain, and how much seed do you think you used to plant them?

 

[freemotion]

Yes, but it is generally not used. Usually hay fields are established and not planted every year, and grains would need to be replanted so it would get expensive.

I love the way 12 Aprils dairy in CA uses crops, mostly grains, planted with a no-till seeder right into their pastures to boost the nutrition to their milking cows. They plant sorghum, alfalfa, and several other crops....whichever is best suited to the particular month so that they essentially turn every month into the highly nutritious April pastures....rapidly growing vegetation grazed at just the right time when it is richest in nutrients. Brilliant.

 

[GOOGLE NIKOLA TESLA]

i believe its about 30 ft by 5 ft something like that, atleast on one side. it seems to be adequate in the growing, i had some with a black fungus, which from what i researched is common when you have alot of rain, which we did, i just picked those ones out, it was only like 5 heads out of thousands of heads lol. it looks as beautiful as a picture lol, that is what i find neat is holding a real wheat plant in my hand, not just seeing it in a book or on the net lol. about 5 lbs its probabaly less than this, but i did rows, if you do a field, it will be probabaly 5-10 lbs for the larger area coverage. i bought a 30 lb bag for like $20-30 on johnnys seeds because they say they do everything so there is no GMO, i hope not, but that is why i bought my corn and wheat through them. try to safeguard my food as much as possible, and secure its genetics for future generations, incase the GMO really causes damage, but i cant promise that either because pollen travels. its sad. i dont use any chemicals and i am proud of this, if it comes to it, im bringing out the vacuum, so far i see no pests on my crops and i am sooo thankful for this. i have alot left as you can see, i was thinking of getting one of those grinders and using it to process some of the extra grain i got for some bread, still not sure if it was sprayed, but i dont believe so lol.

yea quinoa looks like a great crop to grow, i ate it,its better cooked lol. supposedly it has a almost complete nutrition and nasa was going to use it as a storage crop on deep space missions because of this lol. look, some say heemmp is the most complete, but its not allowed here lol, washington even said all americans should have a crop of heemmp lol., maybe its allowed in tasmania?? thats probably ur best long term crop out of it all, even though its not a grain lol. i have no clue if its storable??

 

[savingdogs]

I'm experimenting with growing several grains this year. My problem is that they all pretty much resemble grass, and I have a lot of different mixed grasses here already so it is hard to weed around my crops. I wanted to save seed and replant next year what did well here, but I'm not sure I'll be able to distinguish what all I've planted!

I have quinoa which did really well, I'm about to harvest that I think. Does anyone know how I would do that properly, my main goal would be to save seeds for planting.

 

[Neko-chan]

Actually I think there are many battles over hemp here right now, lol. The only hemp product I've ever consumed was hemp milk, which was absolutely dreadful.

I have a friend though who makes hemp cord bracelets.