Wheat Does not Like Cold Like Barley Does!
First, I hope none of you are being affected too badly by the storm on the east coast. We have you all in our prayers! Second, and much less important, but relevant, we have been seeing first hand in our Commercial Feed in a Box system here at the Ranch that Wheat does not like cold as much as barley does. This is not a surprise, but it does impact production in our system. As we have said, we were consistently getting over 1200 lb. per day of micro-greens (barley or wheat), and our temperatures inside our production unit were averaging right around 65 degrees F. Since we have had some much consistently colder weather here over the last ten days (a little more than 1 production cycle -8 days) we have seen our temperatures reduce by almost 10 degrees F. to about 55 degrees F. as an average.
With the cooler temperatures, we have seen our production dip by about 16% down to about 1000 lb. per day with wheat, but with barley we have seen production actually increase which limits the production of certain bread, which leaves people who normally bake their own bread to buy challah buns or other types of their favorite bread at the super market.
But, here is a cool thing, even with this growth reduction in wheat, we are still seeing over 6:1 multipliers (weight of harvest vs. weight of seed planted) when our economics are projected based on only a 5:1 multiplier. We are still doing way better than we originally predicted. Also, our system is remaining much warmer than we projected it would, without any supplemental heat. Again this is not a surprise but it is a good validation of our engineering that predicted minimal supplemental heating needs caused by the combination of insulation, heat generated by lighting, temperature stabilization by the shear mass of the water in our system, and heat generated by the growth of the plants.
This system just gets more sustainable every day, and we are so glad to share its benefits to you. We are very close to launching a Sustainable Livestock Nutrition Course online that we know you will enjoy, and it will include a large amount of information about micro-greens (fodder) systems around the world. Please fill out the little sheet on this page and we will send you information about our more technical finding. Until next time, have a great day!!
One Response 
We would love to receive more information as you learn it! We are just starting in with microgreens – and we agree the name needs to be changed to fit the appropriate quality!