If we throw less than 1,000 pounds of wheat into the mill, hardly anything would come out the other end,” he explains. So after each harvest, Poorbaugh doubled down and used it all for seed, crossing his fingers that the jackpot would be enough to secure the mill’s future. He and his colleagues have winnowed the list down to seven varieties, but in all this time they’ve never tasted a single one.
This summer, finally, a lush and picturesque 35 acres of wheat with multi-hued names such as White Wonder, Purple Straw and Red May has been thriving in Kutztown, Pa., at the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches organic farming methods. And Annville Flouring Mill’s rollers have once again ground what might be the very same wheat they started with.
Last October, Poorbaugh entrusted 500 pounds of seed to Jeff Moyer, the Rodale Institute’s farm director, for one down-and-dirty reason: soil. “They’ve been doing something every year to improve that soil since 1972,” Poorbaugh says. In this case, “improving” means going back in time. “We planted that wheat in soil that looks more like it did in the 1800s than the soil at most farms today.”
Moyer, a laconic, mustachioed organic-farming expert who has been with Rodale for more than 30 years, uses old-world techniques such as crop rotation and compost to nourish the soil. “We’re not trying to grow wheat,” he says. “We’re trying to improve the quality of the soil. If we concentrate our energy there, almost anything we plant will do well.” Once Poorbaugh’s seeds hit the dirt last fall, “all we did was pray.”
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