By Jake Christie for Great Lakes Echo.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection, reporting for Great Lakes Echo/Solutions Journalism/Public News Service Collaboration.

After 10,000 years of domestication, farming and its popularity for use in bread and beer, wheat could have some competition.

Scientists call it Thinopyrum intermedium. Growers call it Kernza.

One of its biggest advantages?

It's perennial.

Perennial crops require less tilling and fertilizer, and grow back year after year.

Kernza has deep roots and excels at soaking up nitrates in soil and runoff, said Jake Jungers, assistant professor in the department of agronomy at the University of Minnesota. And that helps protect water systems.

Those roots also take carbon out of the air and lock it away in the soil, which helps combat climate change, Jungers said.

The Land Institute is a nonprofit research organization based in Kansas that develops crops and cropping systems that benefit the soil.

The organization has been developing Kernza for about 20 years, trying to improve the wheatgrass so it can be an alternative to wheat, said Tammy Kimbler, director of communications with The Land Institute.

The institute works with several universities and researchers across the United States and worldwide.

The Forever Green Initiative at the University of Minnesota works with Kernza, and 15 other crops to improve crop production.

The initiative took a holistic approach in developing Kernza, thinking about how the plant could benefit farmers and the environment, said Mitch Hunter, associate director of the Forever Green Initiative.

The challenges are significant. Kernza yields only about 20% of the grain wheat does, one of the downfalls of having deep roots, said Prabin Bajgain, an assistant professor in the department of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota.

Improving Kernza's yield is a focus of his work, but other traits with strange names like shatter resistance and free threshing ability are just as important, Bajgain said.

Shatter resistance is a seed's resistance to breaking from physical contact, or as part of its lifecycle. Free threshing ability is how easily the plant can be harvested mechanically.

They've had some success in developing those traits, but still have a ways to go in developing yield, Bajgain said.

One technology they're avoiding is genetic modification.

Wheat has a several thousand year head start on Kernza, and genetic modification could help to bridge the gap. But it comes with downsides, Bajgain said.

Negative perceptions of genetically modified organisms could hurt Kernza's introduction into fields and markets, Bajgain said.

"You don't want any negative press, especially when these crops are so new," Bajgain said, "The crops are so diverse, we might not need that right now. If I plant 500 plants of Kernza, each plant looks different from another."

While there's a focus on natural breeding practices, researchers use genetic sequencing technology to speed the selection of plants and to keep desirable traits, Bajgain said.

Kernza has already made its way into a few different markets.

Patagonia Provisions partnered with Dogfish Head Brewery and released a Kernza pilsner in 2022 that's available in stores across the country.

Bang Brewing in St. Paul, Minnesota, started working with Kernza in 2016, said Sandy Boss Febbo, the brewery's co-owner and co-brewer.

From its prefabricated construction, and native prairie and wildflower beer garden, to their use of all organic ingredients, the brewery was built with sustainability in mind, Boss Febbo said. So when they had the chance to brew with Kernza, they jumped on it.

Kernza brings a nuttiness, as well as some spice, to the beers it's used in. But its flavor changes depending on where it's grown, a quirk similar to wine grapes that likely stems from deep roots, Boss Febbo said.

A few other businesses use Kernza across the rest of the country and Kernza flour is available online.

In terms of fighting climate change and producing food, it's not enough to just switch out wheat with Kernza, Hunter said.

Part of the Forever Green Initiative's work is a concept called continuous living cover. That means planting crops so there's always something living in the soil.

"We need to bake conservation right into our cropping system." Hunter said, "Conservation should not be an add-on to the way we grow food, it should be essential."

Using perennials like Kernza with winter annual or perennial crops can increase soil and water health, Hunter said.

The Land Institute hopes Kernza can catch up to wheat in terms of availability and surpass it in economic benefit.

"With the rate of technological advances and the kinds of funding and collaborations that are happening now, it should be able to achieve wheat-like yields in about 15 to 17 years," Kimbler said.

"Which, in plant breeding terms, is remarkably fast."

This story was produced with original reporting from Jake Christie at Great Lakes Echo.



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A meeting on sustainable fishing in Seattle could inspire greater protections for Washington state's waters in Olympia. The State Innovation Exchange held the "Sustainable Aquaculture and Working Waterfronts" convention with lawmakers from 13 states.

Emma Newton, senior associate with agriculture and food systems program for the State Innovation Exchange, said big corporations dominate agriculture and farming, but large-scale, industrial fish farming isn't in the United States - yet.

"However, we are seeing increased interest in putting these large-scale, essentially factory farms of the ocean in our waters, and they're a direct threat to our ocean ecosystems, our local fishers and the native fish populations," she said.

Newton added the convention focused on how policymakers can protect sustainable and local fishing economies and tribal food sovereignty.

Rep. Mia Gregerson, D-SeaTac, attended the convention and said the state banned some fish farming practices after tens of thousands of non-native Atlantic salmon escaped a fish pen in 2017. Gregerson added the state needs to go further to protect the region from industrial fish farming.

"We're only able to control the policy for about three miles off the shore, and so it's going to be really important then, right, to make sure that we have a state coastal zone management plan that prohibits the same type of farming beyond just state waters," she said.

Newton added events like the one in Seattle are important because policymakers are able to connect with communities and the people working on these issues, making them more effective in their decision making.

"They're able to know that they don't have to go to the large corporations or the lobbyists for the information they need. They can go directly to the community. They're building relationships that circumnavigate the traditional way that policy is being made," Newton said.


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Farmers in Iowa are studying interactions between crops, water usage, carbon and nitrogen storage, and how those factors combine to affect longterm soil biodiversity. It's part of a seven-state project in the Midwest.

Researchers are looking at the effects of crop combinations on soil and moisture across the Corn Belt.

Iowa State University Agronomy Professor Sotirious Archontoulis is running one research site in the five-year, $16 million project.

He's monitoring how crop management, carbon and nitrogen content affect soil moisture - and will try to predict the impact on the viability of future crops.

"We have the same setup in many different environments to capture different organic matter, soil hydrology conditions," said Archontoulis, "so we get a better understanding of the complexities in the agronomic system."

Archontoulis said scientists can also study greenhouse gas emissions from the soil.

He said these ultimately affect its health and can have an impact on large ag operation waste runoff, which is known to pollute nearby ground and surface water. The research is gearing up now.

Based on the computer model's findings, Archontoulis said researchers can make recommendations to farmers based on - for example - how much nitrogen the soil is losing in certain places, and how they can adjust planting schedules as a result.

"We can say, 'This cropping system with this management practice typically loses that amount of nitrogen,'" said Archontoulis. "'However, the other combination of cropping system could reduce nitrogen loss and improve productivity by X%, so this is a better strategy to move forward.'"

Archontoulis said the research begins across the Midwest this summer.




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Washington state has allocated nearly $1.5 million in grants to support local food systems and supply chains. The Washington State Department of Agriculture distributed the funds to 40 projects, supporting farmers, food and meat processors, and distributors.

Galen Van Horn, local food system and supply chain specialist with the Washington State Department of Agriculture directed distribution of the funds and said there has been consolidation in the large-scale market that small and mid-sized operations can combat.

"We've just seen a clear need for investment to support those small and mid-sized operations and make sure the infrastructure is scaled to meet their needs, and that we don't just have very, very large food system infrastructure - like processing facilities and aggregation points - that are only really scaled for very large farms and food businesses," he explained.

The seeds of the program began in 2021, when the Washington Legislature distributed federal COVID-19 recovery funds to support local food infrastructure because of the pandemic's impact on supply chains. Since 2023, the Local Food System Infrastructure Grant program has distributed $8 million in state funds.

Van Horn said the program is popular and received nearly $19 million in requests - well over what it could provide. One project selected in 2022 was the nonprofit Columbia Community Creamery, which received more than $450,000.

"They got a large grant to get the equipment necessary to receive bulk milk deliveries, and then process that into jars and have it ready to be consumed. A lot of food safety involved there," he continued.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture expects to start the next application round in the summer or fall of next year. Van Horn said the agency looks for proposals that impact the regional food system, are achievable and ask for a reasonable amount of money.


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