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Perennial Grains: Could Kernza Replace Wheat? · Cereal Killers

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  Hello there and welcome back to the podcast. Today's podcast is a joint episode
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  between Serial Killers, our podcast about arable crops and hydroponics daily,
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  our podcast all about hydroponics because it relates to both forms of growing
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  crops, indoor and outdoor farming.
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  And yeah, I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Limited,
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  and we sell fertilizers, biostimulants and organic biopesticides to both types of farmers.
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  And today we're talking about the utopian world of perennial arable crops and
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  whether they could be a crop of the future.
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  Now, you may not be aware of this, but there are a number of perennial cereal crops.
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  They are small, but they are commercial and you can buy them.
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  They're not in the mainstream commodity market though. They're not sold on the markets.
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  There's a couple of crops that have moved beyond pure research and
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  there are many many more that are in the research stage so the
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  main one you may have heard of is called ken kernza
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  and that is a registered trademark because it is owned by
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  a company and it's classed as an intermediate wheatgrass
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  it's the most visible commercial perennial cereal-like grain in north america
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  it's sold in niche value-added few foods and it's also put into some beverages
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  products a lot of ipas contain this kernza and it's grown at a modest scale
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  across multiple US states.
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  Drawn you know commercial scaling is drawn by the brand pull
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  supply chain building rather than the agronomics
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  and the fantastic thing about the crop now why
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  would you want to grow a perennial cereal i should have talked about from
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  the start well basically you don't need to plow and
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  you don't need to sow seeds every year so both
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  from a economics perspective you know you're reducing your
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  diesel bill by not plowing you're reducing your bills
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  by not buying seed but also from a regenerative agriculture
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  perspective if you're not plowing the soil every year
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  then you are helping build soil biology and you
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  are potentially not destroying
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  this you're not eroding the soil so fantastic from
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  that perspective and also potentially you
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  can get your crop off to a better start by the fact that it's
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  got a lot of biomass alive under the
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  ground in the spring so potentially somewhere like the uk where
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  we have cold springs then potentially it could be
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  good so yeah something like kernza could be
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  a good thing the problem is that current yields are typically
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  well below annual wheat in many environments and you've
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  got the issues of managing multi-year stands so as well as the the crop building
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  up biomass you've got the potential for building up pest and disease in that
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  field there is no rotation so that currently is a limitation in its growth Imagine
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  you've got a barley yellow virus in it,
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  then that would be in it until you kill the plant.
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  So your seven years suddenly goes out the window.
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  So there are a number of different challenges when growing these sorts of crops.
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  There's perennial rice as well as wheat.
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  That really stands out because it could, you know, parts of China...
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  It's growing rapidly. There's rapid growth, more than 9,000 hectares by 2020 and 15,000 by 2021.
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  So a number of small holding farms are growing perennial rice.
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  The advantages in labour, because obviously you hand plant rice in paddy fields,
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  and the establishment costs and challenges.
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  So potentially perennial rice has more of
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  a more of a economic uptick
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  to it than than wheat there are
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  other perennial crops perennial rye what i've
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  looked at is perennial sorghum because there are a number of perennial varieties
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  and sorghum is an interesting crop it's a big crop it's a it's much larger than
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  say wheat and it's an industrial crop often it's sort of non-food use It goes
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  into a lot of white spirits.
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  So a lot of the sorghum that's grown in the US grows to produce white spirits in China.
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  That's not the stuff you use when you're decorating. White spirits is the.
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  Is it called beige i think in chinese i think it's baijiol
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  which means white alcohol check out
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  check out my chinese mandarin spirit knowledge off
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  the top of my head that as well haven't done any googling do speak
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  a bit of chinese well i can read a bit of chinese i can't speak it because i
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  can't do the um the tones but baijiol that's
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  a white spirit and that's what sorghum's used for i grew
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  some perennial sorghum and what
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  supposedly was perennial sorghum i got the seeds got my uh
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  colleagues who sell gold leaf
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  over in the us the the ultimate hydroponic
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  fertilizer to send me some seeds however it's not
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  hardy in the uk so it's mainly a crop if
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  it's going to be a crop for southern states of the us maybe sort
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  of mediterranean regions of europe so there's
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  options as well for grain and forage so you could potentially
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  once you've harvested the crop set that that field
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  over to forage and still get you know put some
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  animals on it get some return there and it still grow for the second year there
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  are a number of different organizations working on perennial sorghum but it's
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  not sort of widely established commercial grain grain and the other advantage
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  of sorghum is it's can be used in.
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  Bird conservation or if you're into hunting you
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  can use it for as a crop for feeding
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  and allowing your birds to you know your sorts of
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  pheasants and obviously some partridges to
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  take cover and things like that so that's the
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  current state of perennial our crops
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  at the moment but what could be
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  done with genetic modification or gene editing sort
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  of CRISPR technology what are the likely targets over
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  the next several years if people were to put their mind to
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  it so the big wins what's feasible
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  reduce seed seed shattering that's
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  a big problem increase the seed size plant architecture
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  and improve the free threshing
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  traits easy for me to say improve synchronization of
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  flowering because these are all issues with perennial arable crops
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  and reduce lodging and when
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  you look at a lot of these crops like kernza they
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  are a bit sparse i say a
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  bit sparse they're very sparse compared to a conventional arable
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  crop and there's a lot of bare earth and so producing lodging is going to be
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  a key one because they there's just a lot of air in between the plants and increasing
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  the density they can be planted at optimizing the fertilization that's going
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  to be key stabilizing the yield across years,
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  knowing what the year is.
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  Could the genes for perenniality be put into more commercial varieties that
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  are resistant to things like rust and other things like that,
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  or could it be the other way around?
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  Could some more of the commercial genes be put into the perennial crop?
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  And could they be done by gene editing rather
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  than genitrogen modification so could it could a tweak
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  in one or two genes induce perenniality in
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  a annual crop that's something to be looked at
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  obviously there's you know you know it's breeding for
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  pest disease resistance but that they're they're
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  given they're in every breeding program for
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  any type of cereal crop and so yeah that's
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  something the eu do the eu allow kernza
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  that's a good question let me check yes it
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  looks like it's allowed in the eu it has to be labeled as you
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  know wheat allergen but it doesn't fall foul
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  of the eu novel food regulations which
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  stop just anyone introducing any plants and
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  saling it as food which is an issue i think
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  kernza is is bred in
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  kansas by the non-profit land institute
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  and they're actively researching it
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  the plants since 2010 they've been
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  transferred transfer trying to transform it trying to breed it from a small
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  seeded wild species into a high yielding domesticated
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  grain but you can remember annual wheat has you know got centuries
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  or even not thousands of years on this plant so um
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  it's a slow process but hopefully they will eventually be able to produce a
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  viable sustainable alternative to annual wheat which is the world's most widely
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  grown crop and one in five of your calories come from wheat so i think about
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  pasta and things like that i've been told i've got to pick up some pasta for.
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  Tea tonight so i'll go and do that.
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  It is a hot topic. There was an article in The Guardian, the British newspaper,
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  saying, soil is more important than oil inside the perennial grain revolution.
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  I'm not sure what it's got to do with oil, but there you go.
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  So it's a hot topic as we speak this week.
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  The plant that Kernza comes from is native to the prairies of Kansas, and that makes sense.
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  The other advantage I missed is that you've obviously got those mycorrhizal
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  and beneficial microbe connections, which we sort of ignore when it comes to
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  cereal crops because they're in the ground for such a short amount of time.
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  It's not really worth inoculating with the mycorrhizae or promoting the mycorrhizae,
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  but if it's a perennial crop, then it's certainly worth it.
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  And then imbuing those characteristics, the phosphorus solubilisation and things
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  like that, that mycorrhizae are so great for.
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  And obviously if the plant is living for multiple years, it's going to produce
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  a much larger root system.
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  And so an annual wheat plant will produce roots that go down to half a meter deep.
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  Kernza, another perennial grasses, they can go down to three meters deep.
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  So you think of a prairie, you don't think of much plant here on the top,
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  but the actual biomass, the roots going down, go crazy deep if allowed to.
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  The soil is conducive to that.
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  So that work's going on in Kansas. It's also being undertaken in Ukraine, which is great to hear.
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  China for perennial rice, and then
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  Uganda is where a lot of the perennial sorghum research
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  is undertaking so what's this got to do with hydroponics i
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  think this could be a potential crop for hydroponics because
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  you it's a small plant compared
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  to per to annual wheat and you
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  could potentially get multiple crops per year
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  in an indoor facility it's high
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  value because it's going into things like ipa and and health food stores it's
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  so it's not you know the price you can pay as many multiples on on conventional
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  wheat so it's that sort of feeds into that niche high value end use we talk
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  about on hydroponics daily our podcast many days and.
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  I think producing a stable crop that can be grown and perennially in a hydroponic
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  setup, that would be fantastic because you wouldn't have those time to set up costs,
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  the establishment costs, which we do like legal cannabis or pops or things like this.
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  It could be potentially, you could crop it multiple times or even continuously, I don't know.
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  So worth getting some seeds if you can get some seeds
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  of perennial rice kernza perennial
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  sorghum i think i've got some i think it was oh i'm looking at some
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  now i've got a bag sat opposite me with perennial sorghum
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  seeds if you would like some then please email me
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  and i can get some posted to you
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  just give us a like on apple podcast there
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  you go that's all i asked for if you're not on apple podcasts then just
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  give us a follow i hope you've liked today's episode on perennial
• 11:48
  cereals if you would
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  like to check out any fertilizers biostimulants or
• 11:54
  organic biopesticides for use in growing your perennial arable
• 11:57
  crops or your annual arable crops
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  then check out utreema.co.uk we produce
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  products for arable crops hydroponic crops
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  sports turf lawn care if you're growing a
• 12:10
  plant we produce a unique novel fertilizer for
• 12:13
  that and you won't find that technology anywhere else and
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  we're more than happy to answer any of your technical questions you may have about
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  growing crops any challenges you've got just give us an email or
• 12:23
  a phone call or dm us i'm more than happy to help you might not have the answer
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  we might not even have a product we might recommend somebody else's products
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  but hopefully we can help you that's been serial killers and hydroponics daily
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  for today i hope you've enjoyed it and i'll speak to you again hopefully soon
• 12:39
  if it's hydroponics daily i'll speak to you tomorrow because it's daily podcast.
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  Serial killers, not so much. Anyway, that's enough of the waffle. Goodbye.