Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogle bomb here. The ever increasing need
Speaker 1: to feed Earth's growing population, and that not always cautious
Speaker 1: ways that we grow our food are some of the
Speaker 1: factors that have put our planet's environment in peril. Farming
Speaker 1: accounts for nearly a quarter of human emissions that are
Speaker 1: warming the atmosphere, and as much as half of that
Speaker 1: comes from plowing the soil to grow crops such as wheat, corn,
Speaker 1: and soybeans, which releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide,
Speaker 1: of the latter a byproduct of fertilizer use. But researchers
Speaker 1: have been working on ways to reduce the harmful environmental
Speaker 1: effects of agriculture. One potentially promising innovation is a grain
Speaker 1: that goes by the trademarked name kurnza. Unlike familiar grains,
Speaker 1: it can be made into flour for use in bread, breakfast, cereal,
Speaker 1: and other foods, and also as an ingredient in products
Speaker 1: ranging from beer to ice cream. But unlike many other grains,
Speaker 1: kerenza is a perennial plant, a meaning that once it's planted,
Speaker 1: it'll keep coming back up year after year. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be replanted from scratch each year, so it
Speaker 1: cuts down on labor. In addition, Kearnza has a deep
Speaker 1: root system. It reaches over ten feet or three meters
Speaker 1: into the soil and may help to sequester or capture
Speaker 1: atmospheric carbon. That root system could also make it more
Speaker 1: resistant to the impact of drought related to climate change
Speaker 1: in some areas. Krenza was developed by the Land Institute,
Speaker 1: a Salina, Kansas based organization founded in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: The co founder, West Jackson recognized that a big problem
Speaker 1: of modern agriculture was that it was wearing out the
Speaker 1: soil by focusing upon monoculture growing a single crop in
Speaker 1: a certain area. As that practice intensified on modern farms,
Speaker 1: its destructive downsides became more and more evident in the
Speaker 1: form of erosion and worn out soil that required increasing
Speaker 1: amounts of fertilizer, creating increasingly polluted groundwater. Jackson saw the
Speaker 1: development of perennial grains to replace annual ones as a
Speaker 1: vital part of the solution to those problems. The Land
Speaker 1: Institute's website explains, given that grains make up over of
Speaker 1: our global caloric consumption and over for our global crop lands.
Speaker 1: Transitioning from an extractive annual model to a perennial model
Speaker 1: is the best chance we have to create a truly
Speaker 1: regenerative food future. But developing new food crops is a
Speaker 1: difficult and time intensive challenge. Back in scientists at the
Speaker 1: Rowdale Institute, another research organization, identified a plant called intermediate
Speaker 1: wheat grass, a species related to wheat, as a promising
Speaker 1: candidate that might be developed into a perennial grain. They
Speaker 1: worked with researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture
Speaker 1: to breed the plant and improve its fertility and seed size.
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, the Land Institute began working with
Speaker 1: intermediate wheat grass as well. After years of breeding the plant,
Speaker 1: they developed currents of the registered trade name for their variety.
Speaker 1: In some ways, the process of developing a new crop
Speaker 1: hasn't changed much since prehistoric times. Basically, it involves breeding
Speaker 1: generation after generation of a plant, taking the best from
Speaker 1: each new batch, and breeding them together in an effort
Speaker 1: to promote whatever desirable characteristics you're seeking. However, plant breeders
Speaker 1: these days have some tools that the ancients lacked. The
Speaker 1: Land Institute employed a process called molecular breeding, in which
Speaker 1: they use genetic analysis to determine the traits that the
Speaker 1: plant should have even before it grows to full size,
Speaker 1: in order to spot plants but the most potential for breeding.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Rachel Stroher, the Institute's chief strategy officer.
Speaker 1: She explained it's taken US ten thousand years and an
Speaker 1: intensified two hundred years of modern breeding to get the
Speaker 1: crops we have today. It's taken twenty to get curnza
Speaker 1: to where it is. It might take another twenty to
Speaker 1: get it to competing at a scale with the annuals.
Speaker 1: But in the effort to turn curnza into a commercially
Speaker 1: viable crop, there's a lot of work ahead. Stroller says
Speaker 1: that research ars are now working to increase the size
Speaker 1: and number of seeds produced by each plant, and to
Speaker 1: increase the height of the plants. One drawback of curnza
Speaker 1: is the unlike conventional wheat, it doesn't yet lend itself
Speaker 1: to free threshing, in which the edible grain is easily
Speaker 1: loosened from the plant. It instead requires another step called
Speaker 1: de hulling, to remove the skin of the seed before
Speaker 1: it can be turned into flour. That's because the stems
Speaker 1: remain green after the plant matures, Conventional wheat withers and
Speaker 1: is thus more easily separated. In addition to breeding currenza
Speaker 1: to make it suitable for free threshing in the future,
Speaker 1: scientists are working to make the yield produced by real
Speaker 1: working farms match what they've been able to achieve on
Speaker 1: their research plots. To that end, they're gathering data from
Speaker 1: the farmers to help figure out how to time the harvest,
Speaker 1: what settings would be optimal for combines, and other factors
Speaker 1: that might make the fields more productive. Researchers are also
Speaker 1: working with bakers, chefs, brewers, and distillers to develop products
Speaker 1: that utilize curtainsa to help create a future market for it.
Speaker 1: One product already on the market is long Route pale Ale,
Speaker 1: whose maker Patagonia provisions cites currents as environmental positives in
Speaker 1: its marketing, and last year General Mills Cascadian Farms brand
Speaker 1: produced a limited edition honeytoasted Currents of Cereal, which it's
Speaker 1: sold to raise funds for the researchers. We also spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Steve Coleman, an assistant professor in the
Speaker 1: School of Environment and Natural Resources and Ohio State University,
Speaker 1: and the co author of a twenty eighteen Bioscience article
Speaker 1: on Curnza cultivation methods. He said, I've been working with
Speaker 1: Curnza for ten years, and it's been a fun adventure.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I've really come
Speaker 1: to appreciate is that successfully domesticating and developing a new
Speaker 1: crop requires more work than anyone can really appreciate. It's
Speaker 1: a major collaborative effort that really does require many people
Speaker 1: working together, scientists of many disciplines, food chain actors, and
Speaker 1: a consumer market that's ready for and wants it. It's
Speaker 1: pretty daunting task, but also what makes it so much
Speaker 1: fun to be a part of it. The Land Institute's
Speaker 1: Currents of program is just one part of a larger
Speaker 1: effort to develop perennial crops that could someday replace annual ones.
Speaker 1: Also in the works are perennial wheat, sorghum lagoons, and
Speaker 1: oil seed, and the Institute has helped launch and fund
Speaker 1: program in China to develop a perennial version of rice.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Patrick Jake Tiger and produced
Speaker 1: by Loll Berlante and Tyler Clang. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other topics with deep roots, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio.
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