Finley Wheat

Every crop variety - just like people - has a story. This is my version of the story of the 5 grams of "Finley" wheat seed you hold in your hand.

In the spring of 1976 I got a job in Eugene, Oregon with a magazine named Cascadia. I was on one of my summer assignments as a photographer out in Junction City, not far from Eugene. The assignment: a Horse Plowing Match. There I met a horse farmer named Lynn Miller. Lynn handed me a copy of the first issue of his 'Small Farmer's Journal, featuring Practical Horse Farming' - hot off the press. He apologized for the still drying ink.

What would happen that day would change my life and involve me in a lifetime of grain re-search. (Note the hyphen.) A team of horses pulling an old grain binder attempted to harvest a field of oats. Whether the weather had been dry, or the oats had been late planted I didn't know, but obviously they were too short for the horse-drawn binder. The short strawed grain was falling all over like pick-up sticks. I would learn quickly what had happened as 'modern' grain replaced 'old-style' grain varieties. Short was better, better to hold up heavy heads of chemically dependent 'high-yield varieties.' These 'new' grains were bred with semi-dwarf genes, making the stems short and strong. Amber waves of grain had become history. These 'new' grains stand up straight like soldiers in the modern agricultural war on hunger... and nature.

I quit my city job and headed back to Eastern Washington. My first stop was the Lind Experiment Station. The Lind Station, out in the middle of the Columbia Plateau, is the driest dryland Experiment Station in North America. I spent much of the day with the WSU winter wheat breeder of the time - Ed Donaldson. One of my first questions to Ed was, "Why isn't WSU doing research on taller varieties of grain for horse farmers." Remember this was 1976 and I was young and naive. Ed answered simply, "If I were to mention 'horse farming' I would lose my job, and never be able to get another one within the university or USDA system for the rest of my life." I don't remember exactly what I felt at that moment; sadness, anger, or what. I still have those same feelings almost everyday I work with grains. I have become less naive. Before I left Lind that day, Ed took me down to the basement where they stored their seed. He gave me samples of many older varieties, none of which contained semi-dwarf genes. I was happy with my visit, saddened by what I had heard, and delighted with the living history that I held in my hands. I would grow those seeds and many more over the next 15 years. I offered many through what may have been the first organic grain seed company - Self-Reliance Seeds from 1978 to 1982.

Fast forward to 2008. I was in Eastern Oregon. A farmer there wanted to grow a good winter bread wheat. Researching what had happened with hard red winter wheats in the Northwest in the last 20 years, I discovered that the last wheat that Ed Donaldson bred and released in 1995 is a tall hard red winter bread wheat. I have no idea if he was thinking of horse farmers or of our encounter so many years before. I also discovered that Ed had died April 13, 1999.

Finley, a Hard Red Winter Wheat has a complex pedigree. Many "heirloom" wheats are in it's family tree: The famous "Red Fife" - "The Mother of Canadian Wheats" and it's off-spring "Marquis;" the equally famous "Turkey Red" (several times actually) as well as it's off-spring "Blackhull" - selected by Kansas farmer, and Grain Selectionist, Earl Clark in 1917; a Turkish wheat gathered by Jack Harlan, the son of Harry Harlan, who was a personal friend of the famous Russian Plant Explorer Nikolai Vavilov who Joseph Stalin starved to death; a wheat from Iran gathered during World War II and a Soviet Era Wheat from the Steppe of Southern Russia; "Hope" - the famous rust resisting wheat developed by Edgar McFadden in 1927 and "Cheyenne" the cold tolerant winter wheat selected from "Crimean" - a sister to "Turkey Red." Mark Carleton - the first Cerealist of the USDA - gathered this last wheat in 1899 in the Province of Taurida in what was then Czarist Russia, now Southern Ukraine. (The Province included the Crimean Peninsula at the time.) We all have a story to tell.

Even though Finley is still being maintained by WSU and Foundation Seed is grown yearly, there are only 5 grams of seed in the little envelope. (Perhaps 120 seeds.) This is exactly the amount of seed of Historic wheat varieties that the USDA Small Grains Collection makes available to researchers. It is from these small quantities that the Grain Project will grow the ancestors of future grain varieties on Lopez.

Planting Instructions: Finley is a winter wheat which needs "vernalization" - the cold of winter - to trigger spring growth. It must be planted in the fall. September to November is good. Plant an inch or so deep in moist soils - better after a day or two of sun to warm the soil. Space an inch or so apart, either broadcast and raked in - or in rows 6"  to 12" for easier weeding and to allow air circulation in our moist climate. The plants will go dormant or slowly grow during the winter and begin faster growth during May. In June the plants will "shoot to head" producing beautiful bronze colored heads, then begin to die and dry giving you up to 12 ounces of grain, which can then be planted in a larger plot in turn giving you up to 40# of grain. After that you become a farmer.