Spelt the grain
Enter the grain: Spelt (Triticum spelta). A distant cousin to wheat, spelt does not behave like the wheat grains that have given
generations of WA farmers a fine living. It has a longer growing period of up to and over six months, and produces a low-yield
crop (I have heard estimates as low as 10% to as high as 40% of the yield of a standard grain crop).
Spelt resembles oats but is bigger and lighter, and has an extremely tough hull that has to be removed before it can be milled
as flour – an extra step that requires a trip to a seeding plant in Moora for a process that strips half of the harvest weight away.
Theoretically, the tough hull can be an advantage, as fewer pesticides are needed and more nutrition is retained in the grain,
but practically, it requires extra time and money to process.
A TRICKY CROP
Spelt grows very differently to wheat and can disconcert farm machinery by ‘lodging’ – farmer talk for lying down instead of
waving firmly in the breeze. Spelt farmers have described the grain as a very tricky crop. It sprouts quickly enough, but then
is inclined to sit in a state of dormancy rather than take off as other cereal crops will – perhaps a nod to its European origins.
(An interesting fact sheet can be found at http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/380784/Organic-speltproduction.pdf).
On the plus side, the flour is considered superior in nutritional values to normal wheat. It is naturally high in fibre, has
more protein than contemporary wheat strains, is higher in B-complex vitamins, and has more of both simple and complex
carbohydrates. Spelt has a delicious nutty texture when cooked, is gentler on the digestive system and does contain gluten, but
at lower levels than contemporary wheat grain. The grain also has glamour in that the farmer I sourced the spelt seed from
assured me it has an ancestry that can be traced to a European source some 5000 years old.
A few farmers looking to diversify and meet an explosion in a nutrition- and health-conscious market have had a go at growing
spelt in the Midwest. Most have given up. The lengthy growing season, low yield and the necessity of adding a de-hulling step
to the ripe grain has knocked all but a few small-scale growers out of the game, even at prices as high as $12 a kilo for the
(organic) flour.
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