2019 : Walla Walla / Waitsburg / Latah / Horse Heaven / Freewater

2019 HORSE HEAVEN 099
WINTER TRITICALE

CROP NOTES

GROWER: Moon Family Farm
GRAIN: Progene 099 Triticale (19 Ac)
SUSTY: Salmon-Safe; Dry-Farmed
PLANTED: September 19, 2018
HARVESTED: July 14, 2019

We’re excited to introduce the Moons into the Mainstem grower mix this year. We met Garrett and Jessica Moon at the Cascadia Grains Conference in Olympia, WA. They’re a young family in Horse Heaven, WA trying to make a living and regenerate the landscape on 8” of annual precipitation. It’s impressive. And they’re fantastic community players in the relocalization of agriculture in the Pacific Northwest.

The climate is too dry most years for a malting barley crop, with fall-planted barley being the safest bet. We opted for triticale, a hybrid and portmanteau of triticum (wheat) & secale (rye). From Garrett’s perspective, the crop is an important tool to break out of continuous wheat-fallow rotation in dry-dry country, in turn helping to break persistent weed and disease cycles. The challenge is finding a market that pays enough to make it pencil out versus wheat.

Meanwhile, we’re excited as all get-out to malt this stuff and put it into hands of brewers and distillers. They say triticale tends to lean strongly in either the wheat direction or the rye direction depending on the particular cross, leaving opportunity to explore two different flavor profiles in time. This particular varietal, 099, seems to lean more in the wheat direction.