We have been growing buckwheat for years now in small amounts. While I have been living in Perth mum has been effectively breeding and localising the red Japanese buckwheat each year. Being gluten free we have always eaten a lot of buckwheat and as a small crop it is hands down the easiest overall homescale glutenfree 'grain' to grow. Cropping for 9 months of the year, weed suppressing (chemically and smothering), vigorous and readily self seeding (a blessing and a curse). We have had small crops and striped the ripe grain (groats) by hand from the stems but this is time consuming so I am designing a catcher for the scythe so the grains can be cut and threshed on a machine. The disadvantage is that like many non mainstream grains/seeds only a 1/3rd of the crop matures at the same time thus hand harvesting 3-4 times over the 1 month of seed maturity get far more groats off the same number of plants than one harvester/scythe run.
The pros and cons of this will be something to figure out over time.
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