ELIOT COLEMAN,

from the Foreword

I believe I can safely say, without losing
any money, that if you know of one fact
truly necessary to growing grains organically in the United States that is not in
this book, Ill pay you ve bucks out of my
own pocket.
GENE LOGSDON,
author of Small-Scale Grain Growing
In this classic book, Jack provides not
only the meaning but also the methods
required to succeed as a small-scale grower
of organic grains.
JEFFREY HAMELMAN,
director, King Arthur Flour Bakery,
and author of Bread: A Bakers Book
of Techniques and Recipes
Given our industrial agriculture, most of us
assume that grain can be grown only in huge
monocultures devoted to producing as much
as possible, unmindful of the quality. But in
The Organic Grain Grower, Jack Lazor provides
us with a practical and attractive alternative.
FREDERICK KIRSCHENMANN,
author of Cultivating an Ecological Conscience

Chelsea Green Publishing

85 North Main Street, Suite 120
White River Junction, VT 05001
802-295-6300
www.chelseagreen.com
Cover design by Melissa Jacobson
Cover photographs by Jack Lazor

OrganicGrainGrower_cover.indd 1

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

TO GROWING ORGANIC
GRAINS ON A SMALL AND
ECOLOGICAL SCALE
The Organic Grain Grower is an invaluable resource for both home-scale
and commercial producers interested in expanding their resiliency
and crop diversity through growing their own grains.
Longtime farmer and organic pioneer Jack Lazor covers how
to grow and store wheat, barley, oats, corn, dry beans, soybeans,
oilseeds, grasses, nutrient-dense forages, and lesser-known cereals.
In addition, Lazor argues the importance of integrating grains on
the organic farm (not to mention within the local food system) for
reasons of biodiversity and whole-farm management.
The Organic Grain Grower provides information on wide-ranging
topics, from nutrient density and building soil fertility to machinery and grinding grains for livestock rations, including:
The history of grain growing and consumption in parts
of Eastern United States and Canada;
Present-day grain farming and the birth of the local
food movement;
Considering your farms scale and climate;
Planting your crop (including spring versus fall cereals
and preparing your soil);
The growing and ripening process (reproductive, milk,
hard-and-soft dough stages);
Harvesting grains and preparing them for sale, storage,
or end use;
Seed breeding and saving;
Grinding grains for livestockincluding how to put
together a ration based on protein contentand sample
rations for dairy cows, pigs, and chickens; and
Processing grains for human consumption.
In this book beginners will learn how to grow enough wheat for
a years supply of bread our for their homestead, while established
farmers will learn how to become part of a grain co-op, working
alongside artisan bakers and mills. Never before has there been a
guide to growing organic grains that is so applicable for both the
homestead grower and the professional farmer.

ISBN: 9781603583657

$45 USD

Lazor

THE ORGANIC GRAIN GROWER

Jack Lazor did not wait for a new movement to inspire him. Jack inspired the
movement. Jack began reclaiming the small
farms grain heritage right from the start
of his farm many years ago. That is why
this book is such a delight. These are the
words of someone who has talked to all the
old-timers and done it all himself. It is like
acquiring hundreds of years of knowledge
in one book.

THE

ORGANIC
GRAIN
GROWER
Small-Scale, Holistic
Grain Production
for the Home and
Market Producer

JACK LAZOR
Foreword by Eliot Coleman

Chelsea
Green

7/1/13 2:22 PM

Introduction
Small-scale agriculture has experienced a rebirth
in recent years as more and more people seek out
food that has taste and meaning. For this reason,
consumers have turned to neighboring farms and
farmers for an ever-increasing amount of their food
supply. At first, produce, meat, and dairy were the
primary staples of this localvore diet. As a result,
local meat producers, cheesemakers, and vegetable
farmersalong with their growing ranks of customershave developed farmers markets and
community-supported agriculture models. Many
more alliances among farmers, consumers, and
restaurants have developed in recent years, and support for local food systems has come from various
state departments of agriculture and a wide array
of organizations, from the Farm Bureau to organic
farming organizations like NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) and MOFGA (Maine
Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association), to
name only a few. The recurring theme throughout
this movement has been that many people want
food with a story. They want to know their farmer
and are willing to pay a premium for sustainably
produced local foodstuffs.
Until recently, local grain production in the
Northeast has been a weak link in the localvore diet.
Bulk bins at food co-ops and health food stores
were filled with dry goods from everywhere but here.
Flours came from distant mills in faraway places
like Kansas and the Dakotas. Dry beans might come
from China, Michigan, or the Red River Valley of
North Dakota and Minnesota. But change is coming
ever so slowly to our local and regional food systems,
and local grain products are beginning to make their
way to pantries and store shelves throughout our
country, and especially in New England, where the

number of small-scale organic farms is very much

on the rise. A small undercurrent of local grain production has existed for years, producing flours and
meals from farm-raised corn and cereal grains; more
recently, other products like rolled oats and edible
oils from sunflowers and flax have appeared. The
hulling and pearling of barley, oats, spelt, and emmer
present whole new sets of challenges, however, for
farmers in a region like the Northeast, severely
lacking in the infrastructure and knowledge of grain
processing, and elsewhere where commodity grain
is the norm and small-scale is undervalued and
not made simply. Seed cleaning and saving, on-farm
plant breeding of locally adapted varieties of grains,
and the micro-malting of barley for local beer
making are all subjects in need of further exploration and research as we develop a truly sustainable
regional food system.
In my state of Vermont, the interest in local
grain production has come from a very diverse
group of individuals. Initially, the push came from
localvore consumers and the retail outlets supplying them. Studies of demand, consumption, and
sales histories were commissioned and undertaken
by the Association of Neighborhood Co-ops in
Vermont and Massachusetts and the Mad River
Valley Localvores of Waitsfield, Vermont. Farmers
needed to know if local grains were simply a fad
or economically viable alternative crops before they
invested the energy into a crop so readily available
from farther away. Initial investigations by researchers like Ginger Nickerson demonstrated strong
demand for locally produced beans, grains, and
oils. And as it turned out, homesteaders and backto-the-landers also wanted to begin growing small
amounts of their own grains on a garden scale for
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The Organic Grain Grower

home consumption. High-priced imported organic
feed grains have also encouraged small-scale organic
dairy farmers to consider growing and storing some
of their own grains for homegrown rations. Many
different individuals and groups have converged at a
single crossroadsand the time is ripe for a rebirth
of grain growing on a small scale.
As interest in this subject has grown over the
past few years, a small and dedicated group of individuals has worked quietly to lay the foundation
for this rebirth of grain culture in the Northeast.
University of Vermont Extension agronomist Dr.
Heather Darby began organizing field days at
Vermont grain farms shortly after she began work
in her new position in 2003. Workshops were held
at the farms of long-established as well as newer
growers of grains, and interest was surprisingly
strong; the meetings were very well attended by a
wide variety of people interested in the production
of grains for both human and animal consumption.
This led to the inception of a yearly grain conference featuring experts from all over North America
who could speak on a variety of themes pertinent
to reestablishing a culture of grain here in Vermont
and the rest of the Northeast. Weve hosted academics from leading agricultural universities who
have spoken about wheat and corn breeding, weed
science, and plant diseases, and innovative farmers
from grain-producing regions of the United States
and Canada have shared their successes and failures
with a very eager and attentive group of interested
individuals from our region. These workshops and
conferences have grown exponentially over the past
half decade, to the point where many of us deemed
it necessary to found a formal organization to
promote this work of encouraging grain production
here in the Northeast. Thus, the Northern Grain
Growers Association was established in 2008, and
interest has continued to grow to the point that we
had almost two hundred attendees at the 2012 conference in Burlington, Vermont. Large-, medium-,
and small-scale grain farming has reemerged in the

Northeast to my delight. It is the purpose of this

book to provide practical, hands-on information
to help anyone and everyone interested grow grain
organically, from the tiny homestead garden plot to
the large field of a more commercial operation.
My own personal farming saga began in the
early 1970s. While attending Tufts University in
politically turbulent times, I somehow decided that
a simple life providing for myself from the earth
would be more fulfilling to me than political protest.
Books like Helen and Scott Nearings Living the Good
Life helped me solidify my plan of action, and I even
created my own major focusing on the history of agriculture. Summers found me working as a costumed
interpreter on the historical farm at Old Sturbridge
Village, a living historical museum located in central
Massachusetts close to where I grew up. My first
exposure to grain was spending the day riding on
an old combine harvesting rye on a neighboring farm
in 1961, and at Sturbridge Village I got to harvest
rye by hand with a curved reaping sickle. The handcut grain was tied off into bundles that were stood
up to dry in the field. Later I got to thresh this grain
out on the barn floor with a handheld flail.
In 1973, I moved to Warden Farm in Barnet, Vermont to work on an old-fashioned dairy operation
where there was lots of evidence of a once thriving
grain culture. One of the farms outbuildings was a
granary that contained many old grain-harvesting
tools like reaping sickles, grain cradles, flails, and
winnowing pans. My employer, Robert Warden,
told me many stories from his earlier days in the
1920s and 30s when they grew oats and flint corn
as a matter of common practice. Circumstances
took me to rural southern Wisconsin in 1974 and
1975, where I found a culture of dairy farming with
farmers growing their own grain as well as hay for
their cows. I spent many hours with my friend and
mentor John Ace of Oregon, Wisconsin, learning all
about oats and ear corn for the dairy. There was also
a thriving Amish community around New Glarus,
south of Madison. My partner, Anne, and I went to
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Introduction
many of their auction sales and began to learn that
the Amish grew much of their own wheat for bread
using horse-drawn grain drills, grain binders, and
belt-powered stationary threshing machines. This
was it. I was hooked. I wanted to return to Vermont
and grow grain the old-fashioned way for ourselves
and our livestock.
Anne and I began our farming careers as backto-the-land homesteaders on a small farm in
Irasburg, Vermont, in May 1975. We were equipped
with a lot of idealism and a truckload of old farm
antiques we had brought with us from Wisconsin.
My first project was to trial six different varieties
of heirloom flint corn that I had obtained from the
USDA seed bank. (I found out all about how much
raccoons like flint corn that first summer.) Anne
and I took many trips to the Eastern Townships
of Qubec that first summer together in northern
Vermont, and we were surprised to see so many
fields of golden ripening grain during our travels. In
August, there were combines everywhere harvesting
the oats and barley. The fact that all of this grain
was growing quite well only ten miles away across
the border was all the proof I needed that I could
do this on my side of the border, too. And so we
bought our first sixty acres in Westfield, Vermont,
in 1976 and grew our first six acres of wheat, corn,
and barley in 1977. Planting was done with an
antique $25 horse-drawn wooden grain drill pulled
by a 1954 John Deere 40 tractor, and we bought
a six-foot John Deere grain binder (reaper) and a
Dion threshing machine in Coaticook, Qubec, for
$250. We spent most of the month of July readying
the reaper for the upcoming harvest and procuring
new canvases from the Amish in Ohio. We ended up
buying a second grain binder from Doug MacKinnon of Barnston, Qubec, for extra parts. (Doug
had used this machine well into the 1960s to reap
his and his neighbors oats.) Beginners luck was
with us, and we successfully reaped and stooked all
six acres of our wheat and barley. We powered the
stationary thresher with a sixty-foot endless flat

belt attached to the belt pulley of our old Super M

Farmall tractor. Five or six old-timers from our area
provided us with lots of help, support, and good advice, and the general consensus was that field-cured
grain reaped, stooked, and threshed was far superior
in taste and color to its modern counterpart directcut with a modern combine. The old guys were
rightour wheat was quite dry and golden-red
in color. Another neighbor, Milton Hammond of
Newport Center, let us use his small grain cleaner
and buhr mill grinder to make whole wheat flour for
our first loaf of homegrown whole wheat bread. We
thought that we had arrived, but little did we realize
that our grain-growing adventure had just begun.
This all happened thirty-four years ago. We tried
selling whole wheat flour to our local food co-op
but were quite surprised at how little our very special product was worth. No one seemed to give any
value to homegrown whole wheat flour except us
and the old-timers who had helped us accomplish
this modern-day anachronism! But slowly, demand
grew, and we have continued to grow wheat and
other grains ever since this very humble beginning.
We gave up the grain binder and the threshing machine after six years and increasing acreage, and have
upgraded to four different combines over the years.
I have managed to collect a pile of old and some
new machinery for planting, harvesting, storing, and
processing our farm-grown grains, and we have gotten mountains of advice from a large group of older
farmers in Vermont and Qubec, many of whom
were French speaking. Most of these old guys have
passed on, but their stories, advice, and goodwill
live on with me every day. We have made numerous
mistakes and learned many hard lessons over the last
thirty-plus years of trying to grow grain in northern
Vermontwe have lost crops to bad weather, and
flooding has become more prevalent over the last
decade. But we have learned a lot about proper
grain moisture for long-term storage by watching
grain mold because it was harvested too wet and
not properly dried. The lessons have been difficult,
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The Organic Grain Grower

but the successes have been ever so sweet. Indeed,
the feeling and security of producing our own food
staples represents true wealth and well-being to us.
Lots of water has passed under the bridge over
the last three-plus decades, however, and we are no
longer young back-to-the-land types. We remain just
as optimistic and idealistic, but we are now commercial organic dairy and grain farmers processing our
own milk and growing hay and grain for humans and
livestock on four hundred acres of land. Integrating
crops, livestock, milk processing, and family into
a whole farm organism that restores the earth has
become a way of life for us; we still grow just about
all of our own food and provide all the grains for
our cows, pigs, and chickens. Our crop base has expanded from barley, oats, and wheat to include corn,
soybeans, dry beans, field peas, sunflowers, flax, and
buckwheat, and in most years we can clean and save
seed for just about all of our grain crops. Crop growing continues to be my primary agricultural passion
along with grain processing, and I continue to learn

about and experiment with elementary farm-based

plant breeding of open-pollinated corn and wheat as
well as on-farm grain processing of spelt, oats, and
emmer. It is my dream that our farm can continue
to be a center of hope, innovation, and inspiration
for those who want to nurture the earth and grow
good food for others. We have certainly held many
workshops here at Butterworks Farm over the years
and have hosted many visitors who have given us as
much as we have given them. As interest in grain
growing continues to expand, I feel that it is time
for me to chronicle as much of my knowledge and
experience as I can muster to further the pursuit of
a sustainable and organic culture of grain growing in
our region. So many people have been so generous
to me with their farming knowledge and wisdom
over the years; it is my turn to give a little back. I
hope that this book about growing organic grains
on a small scale will help people avoid some of the
mistakes that I have made and achieve their goals
with more ease and less pain.

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