Organic Seed Alliance

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California Organic Wheat Variety Trial Results Available

Organic Seed Alliance released a new report today with results from its 2013 organic wheat variety trials conducted in California. Helping growers identify appropriate varieties is key to increasing the production and profitability of organic wheat on the North Coast of California. This region-specific resource is the first of its kind.

The 2013 California North Coast Organic Wheat Trials report is available here.

Organic wheat is a rapidly expanding specialty crop in California. According to the 2009 organic survey from the USDA Economic Research Service, organic wheat acreage increased 50-fold in California between 1997 and 2008, from 727 to 36,115 acres, respectively. The demand appears to only be growing.

The report2013_CA_North_Coast_Organic_Wheat_Trials also includes results from a grower survey conducted to inform the 2013 variety trials and easy-to-use scorecards of each variety studied in the trial. The analysis includes data on data on plant height, yield, moisture, protein, and other characteristics, as well as informal baking trials on harvested wheat.This project was conducted in partnership with the University of California Cooperative Extension with support from the California Wheat Commission and Columbia Foundation.

Cathleen McCluskey

Cathleen McCluskey is the outreach director at Organic Seed Alliance. Cathleen supports OSA communications, and coordination of regional and national outreach efforts, and is the chair of the biennial Organic Seed Growers Conference.