Sirvinta Winter Wheat - Organic

seeds

Triticum aestivum
Open pollinated.

Winter annual grain. Up to 5'. Extremely frost hardy. Hard red winter wheat with medium-late maturity is ready to harvest in August in Maine.

Most wheat varieties available in the U.S. are bred for and adapted to the prairie-type soils of the Upper Midwest and not as well-suited to the moist forest-based soils of the Northeast. Named after a river in Lithuania, Sirvinta is a modern awnless hard red winter variety developed in the Baltics, where soils and climate are more like New England’s. In 1998 Fedco friend Raivo Vihman brought it back from Estonia and passed it along to Scatterseed founder Will Bonsall, who now considers it his favorite winter wheat to grow and eat in Maine. If you’re tired of watching your wheat come in lushly only to fall over when it gets tall, you’ll love how Sirvinta’s sturdy stalks stand strong—great for straw.

Even in smaller spaces, your dreams of baking with homegrown wheat can come true: A customer in St. Albans, ME, yielded 59# of wheat berries from her 10x65' plot—that’s a lot of loaves! Bonsall grows in Zone 4b and says, “I like to plant between early Sept. and mid-Oct.; too late [and it] doesn’t get established well before [winter]. Mine is ready to harvest in August, [though] I pay more attention to the stage of kernels (hard dough stage), and the straw being roughly half yellow. In good weather, stooks should be cured in 3–7 days; if showers threaten, I may throw a tarp over them.” Read more in Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening!

Seed at a heavier rate for later plantings (after Sept. 15 in Maine). We also offer larger farm-seed sizes of Sirvinta Winter Wheat. 21 seeds/g.

Supplier Transparency:
① Small seed farmers including Fedco staff

ships year-round

This item is certified organic

4330 Sirvinta Winter Wheat - Organic

A: 7g

$1.95

B: 28g

$3.15

C: 112g

$7.85

Quick Details

Hybrid Status: open pollinated

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Compare with other Wheat

Variety	Product Type	Hybrid Status
Black Eagle Spring Wheat Organic	seeds	open pollinated
Utrecht Blue Spring Wheat Organic	seeds	open pollinated
Sirvinta Winter Wheat Organic	seeds	open pollinated

Shipping

From early May through mid-December, items shipping from our garden seeds warehouse ship twice a week, usually Tuesday and Thursday. For quickest turnaround time order online by noon Monday or Wednesday.

* We are currently receiving seed from our growers. We may hold orders for up to two weeks as we pack seed to complete orders.

Additional Information

Grains

Our grains selections are rare heirloom varieties especially chosen for small-scale production. Revived interest in food security and sovereignty inspires us to seek edible and heirloom grains. In the early 1800s Maine was the breadbasket of the U.S. Wheat and rice do not demand huge space and can be threshed with a little ingenuity. With good fertility, proper spacing and reasonable diligence, it is quite possible to harvest 10 lb of heirloom wheat from 100 plants in a 10x10' plot. A 100' row of rice can yield 6–10 lb.

Larger-scale growers and farmers, those seeking larger quantities of more mainstream varieties, or those looking for cover crops should check out the Organic Growers Supply list of Farm Seed.

Most of of our grains are also decorative in both form and color, making great accents to bouquets and wreaths. For more ornamental grains, see amaranths, ornamental millets and sorghum & broom corn.

Wheat

Triticum aestivum Most modern wheats are broadly divided into categories by color (red or white), protein content (hard or soft), and by planting season (winter or spring).

“Red” and “white” refer to the color of the kernel, which doesn’t necessarily translate into the color of the flour, although red wheats tend to have a darker-colored bran and white wheats tend to have a sweeter flavor.

“Hard” wheat is a high-protein wheat (typically 13-15% protein) that is ideal for bread-baking; “soft” wheat is a low-protein wheat (typically 10-11% protein) that is best for tender-crumbed pastries.

Winter wheat is planted in the fall, around first frost or up to 3 weeks or so before. It grows several inches in the fall, goes dormant for the winter, sprouts early in the spring and is ready for harvest by mid-August in Maine. Spring wheat is planted in early to mid-spring and is harvested in the fall of the same year. Winter wheats tend to produce yields 25-50% higher than spring wheats and compete better with weeds, but hard spring wheats have the best potential for high protein content.

Germination Testing

For the latest results of our germination tests, please see the germination page.

Our Seeds are Non-GMO

All of our seeds are non-GMO, and free of neonicotinoids and fungicides. Fedco is one of the original companies to sign the Safe Seed Pledge.