alt Hacker Newskey points about wheat Gross (the Italian farmer) discovered in 1990 his attic:
+ It fared better during droughts, growing so tall that it overshadowed the weeds. It didn’t need fertilizer or herbicides.
+ It's height can be a liability. Heavy winds, rains and hail can make the tall stems flip over before the grain ripens, ruining harvests.
+ Working with the lab of Teofilo Vamerali, Perobelli determined that the grain was Triticum turgidum—literally “swollen wheat” in Latin. Known in English as “poulard wheat,” it had originally evolved in what today are Turkey, Egypt and other nearby Mediterranean countries. And searching agricultural references, Perobelli found that it had been grown in Italy, too, until farmers shifted toward higher-yield commercial varieties. That solved the mystery of the seed bag stashed away in the attic: It had survived because Grossi’s grandfather saved some of the heritage grains.
Replies
Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators make wheat shorter and prevent it from buckling and falling over. They aren't the most suspect chemicals, but not exactly above all suspicion neither...
Friends of mine found some unknown seeds in a rental they'd just moved into and planted it. When they saw what sprouted they decided they should probably burn the evidence, slowly, one bud at a time.
Tall wheat fields are a significant plot device in Klara and the Sun. Not to mention the various woody fibers involved in Wicker.
Yes, I spent an interesting week hanging out at the cinema!
These are all just unsubstantiated claims from someone promoting a product. The reason the entire world switched to dwarf varieties is that full height wheat falls over in heavy storms and this can lead to a loss of entire harvests and major famines.
This grain, while interesting, is far far less productive than modern varieties and less efficient to grow. It's valuable for genetic diversity and rediscovering it is wonderful and valuable, but it is more or less worthless for farmers as anything other than a novelty.
I know I tend to like some takeaway "summary" comments on HN, but this one just feels like snippets from an LLM reading the article. What's the thinking? The original text isn't particularly long or dense, and this isn't commentary.