We’re on record with the mildly idealistic claim that regenerative agriculture (RA) can save the world. Understood rightly, RA is a lot more than soil health, but rebuilding soil fertility depleted by decades of short-sighted agricultural practices is certainly at the core of it. And perhaps the single most damaging practice in conventional agriculture is tilling fields. Tilling (mechanically digging into the soil and turning it over) breaks up and kills the living environment within soil that allows plants to thrive. It destroys the soil structure that allows it to hold carbon (releasing C02 into the atmosphere), allows it to soak up and hold onto moisture, allows plant roots to grow, and keeps the soil from eroding away.

One of the challenges of converting from a system of conventional tillage to a soil regenerating agriculture is that virtually all of our food grains are what are known as “annuals” – meaning that they must be re-planted each year. Oversimplifying a complex and nuanced situation, the easiest way to re-plant annual grains is to plow (till) a field and re-seed it. A lot of “in-the-field” RA is a collection of techniques that allows this annual re-planting to take place without the soil-destructive plowing / tilling.

Kernza® Perennial Grain is being developed by the nonprofit Land Institute

But what if you could instead have an annual grain harvest without having to re-plant each year at all? Unlike annuals, so-called perennials are plants that only need to be seeded once and then they keep growing and producing year after year without needing to be re-seeded. Think of grass or fruit trees — both perennials.

Kernza® is a perennial grain which is being developed by the nonprofit Land Institute from intermediate wheatgrass. Like other perennials, it is seeded one time and then produces grain harvests year after year. Aside from not requiring the soil to be mechanically disturbed every year, Kernza also helps regenerate depleted soil by throwing its roots way down deep — more than 10 feet — helping both soil structure and also providing a significant amount of underground biomass which is living habitat for critical plant-symbiotic microbes.

Kernza® roots (the long ones) compared to annual wheat roots.

[Kernza® photos used under creative commons license are copyright The Land Institute]

As a food grain, Kernza is high in protein, antioxidants, and nutritional fiber. It has a sweet nutty flavor and can be used in many of the same contexts that you would use wheat berries. You can try Kernza grain as a substitute for brown / “wild” rices and ancient grains like “farro” (emmer).

Milled into flour, Kernza’s baking properties are similar to einkorn, emmer, and other low-gluten ancient grains. See the Recipes tab on this page for bread baking and other ways to use Kernza Perennial Grain in your kitchen.

33% Kernza® Perennial Grain bread

Kernza Perennial Grain

We have compiled some information about long term grain storage (click).