Any hints on growing wheat in upper midwest?

[chenmi]

Wheat is one of the staples if one is used to eating yeast breads and pasta.  About 4 years ago I first noticed wheat being grown in Wisconsin.  It turned out to be soft wheat which is good for non-yeast baked goods.  I bought a garbage can full and grind it into pastry flour.  We have made muffins, pancakes, cookies, waffles and the like substituting 1 for 1 our whole wheat pastry for  part or all white all purpose flour.  The results have been good.  The flavor nuttier and fuller.

I grew a test plot.  I planted about 10-12 square feet of a pasta wheat called Khorasan wheat or brand named Kalmut.  I planted about 3 cups of seeds and got back about 1.5 cups.  The plants looked healthy, but the grain I got back were smaller than those planted and grubs ate the roots of many plants before they got established.  I'd find 6" sprouts laying on the ground with no root.

However, one needs hard wheat to get enough protein to form the gluten and trap CO2 from the yeast.  Durum, the wheat for most pasta, is even higher in protein.  In talking to the local farmers, they say it is too wet and there are fungal issues.  Does anyone have knowledge or experience growing hard wheat or durum in anywhere other than the northwestern states?

[JohnyMac]

I have been doing a bit of research on this and have tried one test, like you.

We tried growing hard summer wheat several summers ago. I forget what the name of the seed was but it was a heirloom type typically grown in New England in the 1700 & 1800's. 

The land we planted on was a former pasture reclaimed from a stand of pine. The land had a gentle slope north to south. It was a bit rocky however most land in the NE is rocky. The size of the plot was ~1/3 acre.

The land was plowed to about a 10" depth then roller disked. We did not have a seeder so we scattered the seed by hand then ran the disker back over it to help "seat" the seed.

The seed sprouted within 14 days and we were all rather proud of work. We all had visions of of bushels of whet neatly stacked in the field slowly drying in October. I even went out and purchased a sickle bar mower. 

As the weeks past, weeds started to overtake the plot and stunted the growth of the wheat. In the end, there was wheat but it was so mixed in with weeds, we never harvested the end product. We then turned the cattle in on the field for them to eat and fertilize.

Further research suggested that we should have not planted spring wheat but winter wheat in the fall for a spring harvest. Apparently a winter wheat field will curtail the proliferation of weeds as we experienced with the summer wheat. We also learned that the winter wheat is less vulnerable to pests.

We did not try the winter wheat this past fall. We just ran out of time with all that was on our plates. Maybe next year.