Last March we went to the Northern Grain Growers Association winter conference at Randolph Tech to hear the considerable expertise that was to be shared. It never made it into our newsletter but I wanted to share the photos and story with everyone. First we heard from Will Bonsall, a Maine based farmer, rare seed curator, and heritage grain grower about his small scale production techniques(he maintains 3,000 rare seed varieties!). Pictured below he described his planting, harvesting, and cleaning approaches… We then heard from Jack Lazor(Butterworks Farm), Heather Darby(UVM EXT and professor), and Brent Beidler about the formation of NGGA. Here they are taking questions from the 100 or so attendees (below).Below Jeffery Hamelman(international baking champion) talks about the qualities bakers are looking for in wheat flour in order for their breads to rise properly…it’s rather complex and requires a great deal of understanding from seed to soil to harvest to milling in order to get a simple(or not so simple)loaf of bread!

Jeffery elaborates on enzyme activity and how it is tested in the lab. NGGA has aquired the funding to purchase the the falling number test kit($15,000) for regional growers to use for this evaluation. Thank you NGGA for all the great work!