Growing and Eating Wheat

Last Updated on February 23, 2023 by TheFarmChicken

Raise your hand if you are a wheat grower or know one!

The fact is many farmers grow wheat. Personally, I don’t think wheat gets the credit or interest that it should because of this. Do you want to know how wheat grows, is harvested and its many uses? Let’s discover together why it’s not just “wheat”.

First off, I think wheat is one of the prettiest ripe crops. Think about it, canola and sunflowers are pretty when they’re blooming. (You can click the word canola it will take you to a blog post. Then you can learn about two crops!) Soybeans are best when they are lush and green, but wheat, though pretty when green, is so beautiful as a golden ripe field! I mean what grain do you think of in the song “America the Beautiful”… “…amber waves of grain…”? I picture a glowing wheat field.

The Process of Growing Wheat

• Just like other crops, wheat starts by being planted in fertilized soil, in the spring, with just a little wheat seed. Wheat is one of the crops you can actually plant from seed that you grew the previous year.
• From there it pops up and looks like a field of grass, I guess probably because it is…which means it can be used in crop rotation with broad leaf crops.
• The wheat will continue to grow. You don’t generally spray wheat with insecticide, unless you have a grasshopper problem. Thankfully, this isn’t a common issue. Herbicide is sprayed to kill the weeds that grow and depending on how the season goes wheat is also sprayed with fungicide.
• As the wheat heads develop you hope for adequate moisture so they fill out well and produce good yields.
• Next, the wheat continues to mature and change in color. Once mature, farmers will either swath the wheat to get it to dry down to the point of being harvested, or spray kill it, and get it to that point. Either way, you are ready for harvest at this point. The grain is then taken off the field and stored or sold.
• Now that the wheat has been planted, grown, harvested and sold; it will be dispersed from there to the different areas that it is used by the consumer.
• The number one use of wheat is flour. After it has been made into flour it can be used in so many different foods! Wheat also is used in animal feed. The straw from wheat also has many uses.

Think about all the things wheat flour can make! There are so many!

It’s so much fun linking the farm to the “table”. It’s a good thing to know where your food comes from. Check out my Instagram account to get a behind the scenes look at farming in ND. I hope you learned something new about growing and eating wheat!

What is your favorite way of eating wheat?

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7