The Bakers and the Wheat

A version of this story appeared in Civil Eats

From 9 to 5, Terry Ellis is an engineer for defense contractor Northrop Grumman. At night and on weekends, he’s the serious sourdough baker behind Black Hat Breads—and an aspiring grain farmer.

A LOAF OF BREAD FROM THE HEART

After searching in vain for a local wheat source, Ellis found common ground with Valley Center bean farmer Mike Reeske, who was cooking up a wheat-growing experiment with Sourdough Delight’s Noris Velazquez. Like Ellis, Velazquez bakes part-time; he’s also a martial arts instructor and is known as the “kung fu baker.”

“I seek out purity of ingredients, those that speak to my heart, and that’s why for 10 years I’ve been collecting heirloom wheat seeds—to one day plant and watch them grow, to learn from them, and pass on their radiant life force through a loaf of bread, from the heart,” Velazquez said.

Reeske shared his organic farming knowledge with the two bakers, along with a quarter-acre of his Rio Del Rey Farms. With 25 varieties and a $4,000 grant from Slow Food San Diego, the wheat experiment had its starter in January 2023.

Thus began a two-year trial to see which heritage seeds would grow, with rainwater only, in Valley Center’s soil and climate. As local growers face extremely high water prices, reduced irrigation availability, and ever-increasing land costs, Ellis and Velazquez hope some might venture into dry-farmed wheat as a way to supplement farm income while adding nutritionally dense, drought-tolerant grain to San Diego County’s agricultural bounty.

‍

STONE-MILLED SUPERFOOD

‍

Artisan sourdough bakers like Ellis and Velazquez seek whole wheat flour from heritage varieties because it’s more nutritious and flavorful than the refined white stuff, and it gives their bread that chewy, dense, filling quality.

“Landrace” grains are varieties that growers adapt to local environments, optimizing water use, energy, and nutrients. “Heritage” varieties predate commercial wheat hybridizations that started in the 1940s. The small-scale experiment on Reeske’s farm reflects larger efforts to revive heritage cultivars and build local grain economies.

Most modern wheat is a semidwarf hybrid, shorter in stature than heritage types, with shallower roots. It’s processed on roller mills that remove the most nutritious components—bran and germ—to make white all-purpose flour. Hybridizing also altered wheat’s protein and gluten structures, making it harder to digest and contributing to wheat sensitivities.

In contrast, “landrace and heritage varieties of grains . . . invest in deeper root development and have greater mycorrhizal associations, affording them vastly greater capacity to scavenge nutrients,” said Reeske. Nutrients are passed to consumers when wheat is stone milled, incorporating bran and germ into “true whole wheat” flour.

A 2019 review on health benefits of heritage grains concluded that “...diets based on ancient or heritage cultivars always showed clear advantages in terms of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities.”

“People who have gluten allergies tell me they can eat bread I make from true whole wheat,” said Velazquez. “I’m making sourdough with the intention of making superfood.”

But heritage whole wheat flour is hard to come by, “especially in 50-pound bags,” said Velazquez.

“Although California has more milling capacity than other states, it’s not set up for stone-milled specialty wheat,” said California Wheat Commission director Claudia Carter. And San Diego lacks infrastructure for wheat processing.

“I think more people are trying to do it; it’s coming. People get stuck on [the need for] combine [harvesting], threshing, cleaning. Establishing something like that here would be a huge incentive,” said Lauren Silver of Wildwood Flour in Pacific Beach, who mills flour fresh in her bakery. She buys heritage wheat from San Joaquin Valley and has grown a few test crops herself. Heritage wheat is particularly well suited to Velazquez’s vision—a small crew harvesting and processing small batches. Its taller stature saves labor over modern wheat in two key ways: It crowds out weeds, reducing the need for herbicide, and deeper roots minimize the need for fertilizer and irrigation.

WHY DRY?

Waving wheat once stippled the sunny lands of San Diego County, but higher-value crops like citrus and avocado supplanted it. Grain is not a profitable use of the region’s expensive water—an acre-foot (almost 326,000 gallons of water, enough to supply two families for a year, or about a third of what Reeske uses on a bean crop) costs around $2,000 in Valley Center—hence the dry-farming experiment.

“We wanted to find out, is this feasible in northern San Diego County? Can this wheat grow without watering it?” Velazquez said.

‍

Dryland or dry farming means growing crops using rainfall and residual moisture, positioning plants where water will flow, collect, and percolate—the way it was done before massive irrigation projects, when California was the nation’s breadbasket. As the climate changes, it’s resurfacing as a resilience strategy. Many landrace wheats are appropriate for dry farming: Longer roots access moisture deeper in the soil, increasing drought tolerance.

“Dryland wheat is likely to expand in California as scarcer water resources go to profitable crops,” said UC Davis agricultural economist Daniel Sumner. “It makes sense instead of leaving unused fields unplanted. In good rain years, it can yield a harvest; in dryer years, it can be used for forage.”

Lucky for the bakers, 2023 and 2024 were not dry; both years saw 15–20 inches of rainfall in Valley Center, which is 150–200% above normal. Ideally, wheat needs 12–15 inches (avocado needs 40–50). Dry farming wheat in San Diego seems viable in rainy years, and studies show that adding just 4–8 inches of irrigation in dry years could be the sweet spot.

Furthermore, said Ellis, dry-farmed wheat could be a cover crop in winter months, “when most farmers in the area aren’t doing anything with their fields,” added Velazquez. Growing heritage wheat retains topsoil, develops soil structure, and improves filtration.

‍

TWO HERITAGE VARIETIES GROWN IN CALIFORNIA

Sonora White‍

• Brought to Mexico and Southwest US from Mediterranean Europe in 1600s (possibly earlier)

• Grown in northern Mexico, California, and Arizona during mid-to late-1800s

• Good drought tolerance

• Prized by bakers for sweet, earthy, and nutty properties

• Lighter than other whole wheat flours

• Well tolerated by those with wheat sensitivity

India-Jammu

• Historically cultivated in Jammu and Kashmir, India

• Produces well under minimal irrigation

• Grows well in warm climates

• Desirable qualities for artisan bread-making

Source: UC Regional Cereal Evaluation Tests, WHEAT CULTIVARS FOR CALIFORNIA,

‍

FRESH JAMMU

When the experiment began, before any wheat had sprouted, Reeske shared his farmer’s intuition for success: White Sonora and India-Jammu varieties. The first harvest, in June 2023, was all Jammu.

Ellis’s first Jammu winnowing yielded a precious handful of wheat berries to load into his countertop stone mill.

The result is a sweet-scented, pinkish-speckled, hearty whole wheat flour with an earthy taste markedly different from refined white flour. The engineer and baker parts of Ellis’s brain worked in concert as he sifted the fresh flour through his fingers. “I can tell customers, ‘This bread is made with 10% locally grown and milled flour,’” he grinned.

Back at Rio Del Rey in February 2024, Velazquez showed off six-inch Jammu sprouts from seeds planted a few weeks prior. After some light weeding, it was time for a treat: fresh bread baked with Jammu from June 2023. To preserve the homegrown wheat’s character, Velazquez added sprouted Jammu berries to the dough. The chewy golden sprouts gave the finished loaf a nutty, rich texture with a perfect chew and crust. It barely needed butter—but of course we had to indulge.

» sourdoughdelight.com
» @blackhatbreads

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍