A day with spelt well spent

Annual event designed to spread word about 'obscure' heritage grains

COLUMBIA BASIN — They came, they saw, they stood in fields of grain that reached their waists.

About 18 people participated in the Fifth Annual Lentz Spelt Field Day Friday, visiting an assortment of farms around the Moses Lake and Connell area to learn about heritage grains spelt, emmer and einkorn.

"Usually it's for farmers, and it was basically to educate farmers on a new crop, because we're always looking for new farmers to grow it for us," said event coordinator Lena Lentz-Hardt, who has grown spelt on her farm in Marlin for five years.

"It's always good to go on tours where you get to see how other farmers manage their crops," said Brad Bailie, who grows emmer on his farm in Connell, one of the stops on the itinerary for the day. Bailie said he had not seen spelt growing in a field before Friday, and wanted to get input from other growers in case he decides to grow the crop next year.

This was the first year the field day was geared towards bakeries, which use the spelt in their products, Lentz-Hardt said, although the event has seen a mix of customers and farmers in the past.

"(We want to) just basically show them what they're growing," Lentz-Hardt said. "They're working with spelt, and this is what it looks like in the field. It just kind of gives them a little something special when they're working with it. They can say, 'Hey, I've walked in that field.'"

Spelt was, until recently, a relatively obscure agricultural product, mostly grown for horses on the farm, Lentz-Hardt said.

"Even though they baked with it, once the tractor came along and free-threshing grain came along, it just kind of went away," she said of spelt. "The Amish are the only people that have maintained and kept using it all these years."

Rising health awareness is the reason that the grains have recently experienced a resurgence in popularity.

"Spelt does have gluten, it's the active protein in the spelt, but it's very delicate," Lentz-Hardt explained. It doesn't have to be kneaded as long as wheat does, she added, and once it's consumed, it breaks down more easily. Spelt also draws more nutrients from the soil, while wheat presently on the market is bred for yield and resistance to drought or pests, and doesn't take the minerals that it should. "That's why, probably, your breads in the grocery store have all the additives. They're missing."

Lentz-Hardt said she finds it rewarding to grow something different than other farmers. There are about five other spelt growers in the area, although Lentz-Hardt said she has exclusive rights to grow her two particular varieties of spelt.

Moses Lake farmer Kirk Holben's spelt field was one of the locations participants visited Friday afternoon.

"Because of some calamities last year, I didn't break even, but I went ahead and went with it this year," Holben said, noting that his field is organic and that he grows spelt only part-time, in addition to his work with the Moses Lake School District.

Lisa and Steve Jackson, from the Pretiola Natural Bakery in Wenatchee, were in attendance to gain more information about the grains they use in what they bake.

"We're pretty ignorant at this point — we use the end product, but there's a whole lot of people that come before us, and do all their research, all their investigation, and then their growing and their expertise, put it all together, and then that gives us the product that we can use," Lisa Jackson said. They've used spelt and explored emmer in their products.

More people are tending to utilize spelt over wheat because it has less gluten than wheat, Lisa Jackson said.

"We actually buy it from Lentz in a grain form and then we mill it with a stone mill, and it just produces a great product," she said. "We do cinnamon rolls, bread, a granola … It just sells. We do it three times a week, but we have people lining up, placing orders and we sell out every day."

Spelt bread is a little denser and has a nuttier flavor, Lisa Jackson added.

Andrea Gunner, general manager of the British Columbia Organic Milling Co-operative Association, said she came down to network and meet with some of the local growers. The largest Canadian production area is in Ontario, she said, so Washington is closer to her location and easier to visit.

"It was interesting to see the challenges that they are facing that we haven't had," she said, noting for example that local growers are facing issues with the cereal leaf beetle. While she wasn't able to attend the entire tour, talking with people at the first two fields and at the initial gathering place at Bob's Cafe was a reward, Gunner said.

"It was worthwhile for me to come, considering it was 12 hours of driving," she said.

It was the first year growing emmer for Bailie. He said he was glad that the breeder who had recommended his variety was in attendance, because he originally thought that his fields looked terrible, since his emmer plants had grown to the point that they were falling down. The breeder told Bailie he had been expecting much worse, and told him not to worry.

"These are ancient grains, they haven't been improved very much," Bailie said. While the nature of farming means things could still go bad for Bailie's operation, he said, "I was encouraged."