Re: wheat variety/strain

Joel Brooks Gruver (jgruv@wam.umd.edu)
Fri, 3 Dec 1999 10:42:42 -0500 (EST)

Hey Klaus...
Kamut is a small grain that is sold in most American natural food stores.
It is similar in appearance to durum wheat with very large amber
caryopses. I believe that only one company in the US contracts all the kamut
that is commercially grown in the world (they had a web site the
last time I looked ~ 2 years ago).

The story goes that an American service
man mysteriously obtained a pocketful of kamut seeds while in Egypt during
WW II. He returned home to his familys farm in the US north central plains
and grew out the seeds until he had enough to sell.

Two years ago, I planted a small plot of it in late September on my familys
land in Maryland, USA. I obtained the seed from a bulk bin at a natural
food store. It grew vigorously with wide blades similar in
appearance to oats but winter killed when the temps dropped down below
about -20 C. I believe that it is grown as a spring wheat in Montana/the
Dakotas.

Kamut is delicious cooked as a whole grain like rice. I am planning to
plant some more at my parents place this spring.

Joel Gruver
Center for Agriculture, Food and Environment
Tufts University

To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".

All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail