What are Heritage Grains?

Palouse Heritage grows several varieties of heritage grains. But what are heritage grains and why should you care? These definitions will help you understand some important distinctions:

Heritage/Heirloom Grains: Generic terms that include all grain varieties raised before the mid-20th century when the modern breeding techniques of industrialized, chemically-focused farming came into common use. Heritage grains include landrace and ancient grains. 

Landrace Grains: Ancient pre-hybridized varieties ("races") of wheat, barley, oats, rye, and other grains that flourished since time immemorial in areas ("lands") throughout the world where they adapted to local environmental conditions. Most of our Palouse Heritage grains are landraces.

Ancient Grains: Landraces as well as primitive "pre-wheat" cereals like einkorn and emmer which have a thin but indigestible shroud ("hull") which must be removed for consumption. 

A Little History

Wheat's ancestral range stretched across the Fertile Crescent from Turkey eastward across the Transcaucasus and Mesopotamia to Kashmir and south to Ethiopia. By 5000 BC, native landrace, or pre-hybridized, varieties had spread along the Mediterranean coast to the Iberian Peninsula. Some two thousand years later some of these grains reached the British Isles by natural dispersion from wind and animals. Successive plant selections by early farmers led to earlier maturing stands to assure yield and prevent damage from the elements, followed by choices for uniform ripening time to facilitate harvest.

True grains like wheat and barley are members of the grass family, while such “pseudo-cereals” as amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat belong to other botanical groups. Bulgur and semolina are sometimes marketed as “ancient grains” but are actually specially processed wheat food products. Other popular varieties today labeled as "ancient grains," such as spelt, emmer, and einkorn, are actually "pre-wheats," or primitive grains that predate what we commonly refer to as landrace and heritage grains.

While they are nutritious like our heritage grains, they have no true connection to the Pacific Northwest or early America. At Palouse Heritage, we specialize in growing the heritage grain varieties that were originally raised by settlers in colonial America and the pioneers of the Pacific Northwest. Because the Inland Northwest's fertile Palouse Country hosts a wide range of favorable growing conditions, many heritage varieties were raised there as early as the 1850s. By the 20th century, the Palouse became the nation's premier dryland (non-irrigated) grain district. 

Wheat Types

Just as there are different classes of grains, wheat varieties are further categorized based on their physical characteristics. Wheat (Triticum aestivum) has been divided into several general classes based on kernel texture (soft, hard), and kernel color (white, red), and seasonal habit (fall/winter, spring). Hard red spring wheats are highest in protein with medium-strong gluten, the protein that provides elasticity to dough, so are used for yeast breads and hard rolls. Hard red winter wheats have the strongest gluten and are used primarily for pan breads and buns. Soft red winter wheats have medium protein and weak gluten for flat breads, pastries, and crackers; and low protein, weak gluten soft winter and springs are used for pastries, noodles, and batters. High protein and strong gluten durums are preferred for pasta, macaroni, and spaghetti. Palouse Heritage grains include heritage varieties that fall within all these classes.