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05/14/2003 Archived Entry: "A Lovely Field of Triticale"

A LOVELY FIELD OF TRITICALE

When you go to Salina, as many of you who read this will do, notice the field of triticale that is just west of Brookville on the north side of 40. At least that's where I remember it being. West of the big red barn. If the cattle are still grazing in it, you can't miss it.

First of all, you will mistake it for wheat, but it isn't that. It's an amphidiploid hybrid between wheat and rye that has a high yield and rich protein content. And it has big leaves at its base that cattle love to eat so you won't see a sign of their heads.

When I drove by on Monday, I was just taken with the beauty of it all...the cattle grazing with their heads to the ground and the triticale half way up their bellies so that the only thing you saw was the tops of their backs and where their tails begin.

I knew the wheat had headed out and that they wouldn't have cattle in that kind of field, but I didn't know what it was.

It's triticale, an experimental plot with seed provided by K-State, so my friend Marvin Schneider tells me, but he couldn't quite remember the name. Sarah Grace had to help me with that and how to spell it, but she learned it from Brent Goss who knows all about those things. I wonder where Brent learned it? We can eventually get back to the source!

These learned farm people!

Take your camera for a beautiful Kodak moment for the disbelievers back east!