HORSHAM Grains Innovation Park will help bring back classic sourdough next season thanks to its collection of pre-industrial wheat.
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Red Beard Bakery in Trentham will plant varieties of wheat from the park’s Australian Grains Genebank that likely have not been used since the 1950s.
Baker John Reid will plant some of the small scale crop at his cousin’s property near Laharum.
About 30 historic wheat strains will be examined to find the best fit for the Wimmera’s growing conditions.
“It’s going to be a bit hit and miss but I’m going to select five of them that taste bloody marvellous,” Mr Reid said.
Mr Reid said his plan was to use the wheat to recreate the kind of bread that was phased out with the arrival of mass-production bakeries.
“The genebank, the fabulous new facility you guys have got there in Horsham, has over 2000 varieties of wheat in their vaults,” he said.
“They will let farmers take 100 grains of any of those varieties and you grow them out.
“Many of those varieties are pre-modern, pre-dwarfing, pre-1950s and 60s.”
Mr Reid said the pre-modern varieties were the ones he was interested in.
“The breeding of wheat just for protein level, disease resistance and yield meant that we lost track of the real intangible of wheat, which is making beautiful, good-flavoured bread,” he said.
“It’s not just horrible, white, sliced factory bread that we’re trying to make here, it’s a beautiful product that you can enjoy eating.
“With modern industrial bread, we have lost sight that bread should taste good. It just became a vehicle for snags and jam and Vegemite.”
The $6 million Australian Grains Genebank was opened in 2014 as a jointly-funded project between the state government and the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
Genebank manager Dr Sally Norton was not available for comment prior to publication.
Mr Reid said it would take a few growing and harvesting cycles to get the quantity of wheat he needed.