When harvest season is behind us, it’s time to ensure that our grain is properly cleaned, dried, and stored.

Dr. Thomas P. Kuhar, Entomology Professor at Virginia Tech, presents best practices associated with using a wide range of natural insecticides that are OMRI-approved.

Dr. Steve Rideout, Professor of Plant Pathology at Virginia Tech, discusses an array of tactics available to growers to address and suppress some of the most problematic vegetable diseases in the region.

Learn best practices, tools, and techniques for flame weeding from Charlie House, who has been gardening professionally since 1983 and consults on flame weeding with farms of all sizes through his company, Earth and Sky Solutions

Nazirahk Amen and family operate Purple Mountain Grown, a 20 acre peri-urban farming venture that features grains, dry beans, and specialty crops. Heinz Thomet and family have been farming in southern Maryland at Next Step Produce for over twenty years. From dryland rice and artisanal wheat varieties to heirloom dried beans, Next Step and Purple Mountain use regenerative and biological farming techniques which strive to create nutrient dense outputs. Heinz and Nazirahk will discuss the ins and outs of these operations including logistics and small-scale grain harvesting, drying and processing techniques and equipment which allows them to deliver grains from farm to table.

Presentation by Dr. Erin Silva of the Organic Grain Resource and Information Network (OGRAIN) out of the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Silva will cover the basics of soil health, including an overview of the science, what we know about soil biology, and why cereal grains are so critical in achieving good soil health

Urban rice production can be a serious calorie and carbon sequestration crop for food security and climate change concerns. You don’t need a paddy, tropical clime, or acres of land to grow this crop under backyard urban conditions! Join Mchezaji "Che" Axum, Director of UDC's Center for Urban Agriculture and Gardening Education, to learn why it is important for gardeners to grow calorie crops, even on a small scale.

This session is designed for farmers with little-to-no grant writing experience, although the hands-on activities in the second half of the program will be helpful for farmers at any level. It will include an introduction to grants at the local and federal level, overview of the grant submission process, and tips on how to tailor your pitch. We will spend time with hands-on activities including a review of a sample request for proposals (RFP), individual pitches in response to those RFPs, and a mock review panel to evaluate and rank sample proposals. You will walk away from this session with a solid foundation to get the money you need! Presenters: Caroline Selle (Winding Root Farm, MD), Ben Shorofsky (CGA Board of Directors and Back Alley Bagel, OH)

Few cleaning problems are as tough as this one.

Let’s have a look at how we talk about wheat.

A seed drill is the best, but you can get started without one.

Yes, it is tricky, but with the right farm system, equipment, and markets, people do it.

Working in the direct market with small grain presents a variety of opportunities to structure your business in a way that works for you.

The vast majority of grain in the US is sold on the commodity market–this is not what we are talking about here.

Damp weather at flowering time makes this an important disease to manage in the Mid-Atlantic.

Choosing which cover crops to plant can be baffling, but don’t let that stop you from just planting something–it will be better than nothing.

The good news is, you have some control over most of them.

We’ll start by looking at all the things that can end up in your harvest other than what you want.

Mid-Atlantic grain tends to have lower protein content, but you can still make a great loaf of bread.

They seem overly complicated, but many management decisions depend on the growth stage of your crop.

Growing this grain chain of ours means understanding how many buyers we need to support our growers. Hint–it’s more than you probably think.

We all know that crops need nitrogen to do photosynthesis–their role in the carbon cycle–but what about the influence of soil carbon on making nitrogen available to plants?

Or, a beautiful connection between growing conditions and cuisine.

The names of the steps persist in our everyday language as metaphors, even as the combine has made the processes themselves obsolete–almost.

“Modern” wheat has a bad reputation, but some modern breeding programs have changed their focus to help sustainable small- and mid-size farmers.

Translating conventional fertilizer recommendations into more sustainable systems opens a Pandora’s box of factors, but we can still come up with a reasonable place to start.

A firm, smooth seedbed is key to good cereal germination.

“Tactical tillage” may actually be the most sustainable option on the small- to mid-size scale.

Getting ready to grow dry corn, dry beans, and sunflowers for seed is a lot like getting ground ready for vegetables.

A new blog about Common Grain Alliance’s Grain Farmer Education project.