Welcome to the Northern Grain Growers Association

Save the Date!

The annual Northern Grain Growers Association’s conference will be held on March 15, 2012 at THE INN AT ESSEX in Essex, VT. The year’s conference is all about “THE SEEDS THAT FARMERS NEED”! Loïc Dewavrin of Longprés Farms in Quebec will be our keynote speaker. The Dewavrin Family operates a 1500 acre organic grain operation just across the border in Les Cedres, Quebec. They grow a variety of grains including barley, oats, wheat, sunflowers, and vetch. This family is known for their innovative ideas especially in the area of breeding, cover cropping, tillage, and equipment fabrication. Frank Kutka from the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society (NPSAS) will talk about farmer-participatory breeding programs and seed security. Join Margaret Smith for a discussion on breeding high nutrition corn. Grain milling expert Tom Leonard will be teaching a milling intensive which will include the specifics of milling and conclude with a demonstration of how milling affects bread baking characteristics. There will be workshops on small-scale rice and edamame production, pretzel-making and much, much more!  More information to follow.

Interested in having your grains tested at the UVM Cereal Testing Laboratory? To download and fill out a submission form for grain samples, click here!

We can test grain moisture, flour moisture, crude protein, falling number (indicative of pre-harvest sprouting activity and crucial to high-quality bread wheat), as well as vomitoxins in the form of Deoxynivalenol (DON).  Please make sure your sample is clean and dry and that you submit at least a quart-sized bag for analysis.  More information available on the submission form.

Check out the latest in a rash of recent publicity for grains grown in the Northeast: a University of Vermont article on UVM’s research with heirloom wheat and winter wheat varieties.  Dr. Heather Darby is featured and recognized for her work, along with Roger Rainville of Borderview Farm, to revitalize the local grain movement in Vermont.  To read the article, click here.

Please check out the new VERMONT MILLED GRAINS site and our recent market study.  Participate as a grower, baker, retailer, and/or consumer.  The more feedback, the more results!

The latest research trial results from UVM Extension’s NW Crops & Soils Team:

2011 Spring Wheat Weed Control Strategies (pdf)
2011 Winter Wheat Harvest Date (pdf)
2011 Winter Wheat Variety Trial (pdf)

2010 Spring Wheat Variety Trial (pdf)
2010 Winter Wheat Variety Trial (pdf)
2010 Heirloom Wheat Variety Trial (pdf)
2010 Barley Variety Trial (pdf)

In January of 2012, a group of bakers from Maine and Vermont trialed four winter wheat varieties grown in 2011 by the University of Vermont and University of Maine.  Randy George from Red Hen Baking Company, Jeffrey Hamelman from King Arthur Flour, Jim Amaral from Borealis Breads, and Alison Pray from Standard Baking Company came together at the King Arthur Baking Education Center in Norwich, VT to test-bake local wheat flours!  The results were delicious.  Check out the photos below.

UVM Extension’s Northwest Crops and Soils Team is also involved in HOPS research. To learn more about this exciting project, and about hops production in the northeast, click here.

The Northern Grain Growers Association is a “farm grown” organization. Since 2004 many of the grain growers in Vermont have been gathering together for exchanging ideas, networking, and camaraderie. The initial focus of the group was to enhance organic seed saving, plant breeding, and variety improvement. Over time the group has developed a somewhat broader focus which includes all aspects of grain production.

In recent years the interest in local grains has been increasing and the group now includes bakers, local eating enthusiasts, agricultural support personnel, and many beginning farmers.