Buckwheat: best value for lysine and protein you can grow for the least amount of effort!

Buckwheat’s been a staple grain for as long as mankind’s been using grains, and despite it’s fall in popularity in recent years, the memory of it still hasn't left us. Almost everyone’s had it in some form or another, whether that be in a healthy seed bread or as part of their livestock feed grains. But did you know that buckwheat isn’t actually a grain at all? There’s a lot more to this inconspicuous little seed than you thought, so let’s get right into it and go on a journey to discover just how amazing it really is.

History and origins of Buckwheat

Buckwheat was first domesticated somewhere in the Northern districts of China around 3 thousand years ago. From there it hitched a ride to Russia and eventually Europe. Buckwheat is a species somewhere between a shrub and a short spindly tree. This perennial is green all year around and produces very fragrant flowers around spring, from those flowers we get the buckwheat seeds. So it’s in fact not a grain, but a flowering seed that can be used in place of grains. That also makes its nutritional make-up quite a bit different from grains, but we’ll get to that breakdown in just a second.

It became popular through the centuries because it grew so well in poor soils and it was pretty forgiving to high and low altitudes. Since common folk were so heavily taxed on their grains and wheat, they just couldn’t keep up with what the nobles demanded of them, so they turned to buckwheat to make up for those huge losses. Both as a staple food and to add to animal feed. It also allowed farmers to put something down that was sure to grow in between bigger money crop plantings, so that a field didn’t have to stand empty. It grew fast, it grew with little to no care, and it was nutritionally dense enough to sustain the people better than most other grains that were harder to grow.

Even though it is technically a perennial, depending on what variety you choose, they are all susceptible to frost. So planting before the winter months was a great way to get one last edible harvest from a field before the cold killed it all and the buckwheat that died could then be used to fertilise the field in time for spring plantings.

Ideally planted in June, harvests can be expected within 3 to 4 months. Sometimes earlier, if hotter weather permits it.

Buckwheat is gluten free, so it doesn’t rise with yeast. Instead it’s used to make porridge, polenta, noodles and flatbreads. But it does well as an addition to other gluten-containing grains when storages are low.

It remained very popular right until the industrial revolution. There’s a very sudden shift around the year 1890, when many grains just began to fall off into obscurity. Buckwheat, amaranth, sorghum and teff all took a hit on the global market. Where France once grew 60 thousand hectares of buckwheat in 1850, it now only grows about 2 thousand hectares of it a year today. And even then it’s only to supply fancy eating establishments and whatever is left is added to breakfast cereals.

It’s gained a little more traction in recent years thanks to a rising demand for gluten free options and generally a more health conscious society looking for a grain replacement that actually has a decent amount of protein. But even with the power of a health trend behind it, it’s still a far cry from its previous popularity 150 years ago.

Nutritional Content of Buckwheat

So why is buckwheat so great anyway? Well we’ll get into the fodder and groundcover parts of its use in just a second, first let’s look at how it’s nutritionally put together. Both for humans and for animals.

Going by the standard 100 grams, it’s got 13 to 14 grams of protein, 70 grams of carbs, just 3 grams of fat and about 10 grams of fibre. But most of that fibre can’t be digested by young children and the elderly. It is perfectly digestible to animals however. Cooking the seed does give you some digestible fibre, but the amounts are still negligible.

Oddly, buckwheat has almost no vitamins in it at all, besides a little B 6, it’s virtually devoid of vitamins. Where buckwheat shines is when it comes to its liberal amounts of minerals. Magnesium, iron, copper, manganese and phosphorus are all present in decent amounts. And as we know these are all beneficial to growth, circulation and metabolism.

But when it comes to animal feed these nutrients are all doubled, just because they can digest it better. That’s no to say humans shouldn’t be eating it, more variety in your diet can’t go amiss, and it really is a good grain replacement for gluten free options. But livestock can just get more from it. They can digest it well enough to get some valuable antioxidants and amino acids from the seed too.

But best of all there’s boat loads of lysine. Almost 600 milligrams per half a cup. To put that into perspective, amaranth and quinoa have the highest amounts of lysine of all the grain sorts and they come in at 650 milligrams for every half cup. By just adding 30 percent buckwheat to any other feed, even if they don’t obtain lysine at all, you can fulfil any livestock animal’s lysine requirements. Protein, fibre, minerals and lysine, if it weren’t for its lack in vitamins, it would have been the perfect crop!

By replacing your conventional feed by 30 percent, there will be no discernible difference in dairy production, your fowl species will be happy with up to 40 percent replacement and your wool sheep can be pushed to up to 30 percent without a loss in weight or wool quality. It’s cheap, it grows fast and plentiful and if your climate doesn’t get frost, you can keep a field of it growing all year around to supplement your feed to great effect, with the least amount of effort and cost.

Growing conditions for Buckwheat

Because that’s why it’s so valuable, it’s no hassle growing conditions. It focuses a lot of energy at its early stages into producing deep roots and a quick growth spurt to get its leaves well developed. Meaning that it’ll get the utmost amount of water and nutrients from the ground and rely on the rest of its needs from the rays of the sun. It produces seeds faster than any other grain crop, so it’ll be worth your while even if your growing seasons are short.

Though it is a drought tolerant plant, given those deep roots, it won’t do well in high heat during its beginning stages, and putting it in the desert might be too much for it to handle. Think of buckwheat as a great middle man crop. Places with mild summers and wet springs suit it best. Though grown as an annual, because the frost kills it, some variants are perennial, and it can grow for years under ideal conditions. It's more forgiving than other grains and grasses, so you can push it a little. And there’s no need to consider soil conditions at all. Acidic, rocky, sandy, whatever you’ve got, buckwheat will do just fine. A fresh payer of raw manure before planting is all it needs to thrive. You don’t even have to bother letting it decompose first, seriously buckwheat couldn’t care less about extra care. It’s not prone to pests, disease or mould. If it gets cold enough it’ll just die and not bother to try to protect itself against the smut. Birds and game do like it though, so you might want to make sure that your fences are up to standard and your scarecrow is wearing his best and most terrifying scare suit. But bugs don’t bother with it and even the ever adaptable nematodes ignore it almost completely.

Once the pretty and delightful smelling flowers begin to bloom, you’ll have a harvest in the next month. Which brings us to another benefit to the farm, bees. There are few crops that honey bees love as much as buckwheat and the quality and taste of the honey it produces is exceptional. If you do keep bees, buckwheat honey is going to fetch a higher price on the market than most other honey sources will.

Since they grow in stalks with bushy tops, they will appreciate a bit of spacing on the ground where they exit the soil, but you don’t have to be methodical about it either. Again, buckwheat isn’t the kind of crop that you need to overthink all that much.

When the flowers turn to seeds and their tops dry out, the stalks are cut down and the fruit seed is just shaken loose. If you do live in a place that won't get too cold, then the new growth will just shoot back from the chopped off stems again in spring. That is if you plant the Eriogonum variety, all of the others are annuals. 

We mentioned earlier that it requires a 4 month harvest time, but that’s at the long end. If it’s planted as a late summer crop it can mature in just 10 weeks.

Buckwheat as Cover crop and rotational grazing

But the main reason we get excited about buckwheat is its potential as a cover crop and as a rotational grazing addition.

There really aren’t a lot of other crops that can mature as quickly, making it an invaluable option in between your larger plantings, or if you just ran out of time this season and you only have 2 months or less to work with. Giving you the ground cover you need to protect the soil and some valuable feed with it. Even if the frost comes in and kills it all, it’ll still serve as a good erosion protector when the spring runoff comes by later to wash your topsoil away. Those roots go deep and they don’t need to be alive to keep the soil intact for you.

As a grazing option, it's a great addition. No it’s not adequate on its own, but intermixed in between other crops, it adds a great deal of minerals, fibre and calories to even your high feeders like dairy cows and steers. The animals, especially the pigs, will dig down to get at the roots, tilling your soil for you for good measure too. Or you can pull them out, stalks, roots and all and feed it to the hogs and goats. Even the cattle will munch on the stalks if they have to. Most smallholdings that grow it in Europe have a continuous patch growing all year around, and they use it to supplement lysine and protein intake during birthing and milking seasons. They simply yank a few stalks out everyday and lay it down as green feed as they do their daily chores.

Buckwheat Benefits

Buckwheat comes as close to the heavyweights as is possible for cooler climates. Amaranth, teff, quinoa and millet are amazing all around human and animal food sources, but they all just do better in hotter, drier climates, with the exception of quinoa that has a little more leg room as far as climate goes. But alot of us just don’t live in conditions that are warm and dry enough to accommodate the big leagues, and that’s where buckwheat comes in. It’s got all the no nonsense qualities that the ancient grains do, and outside of vitamins, it’s the most closely comparable to them in terms of protein and lysine. But that’s easily remedied by intercropping high vitamin crops in between your buckwheat, since they don’t mind having cosy neighbours nearly as much as the uppity corn varieties do.

There’s no reason that buckwheat shouldn’t be on your property, it really is just too easy and nutritious to pass up!

Or have you been growing buckwheat for a while now? Please let us know what your experiences have been! You know how much our team appreciates your feedback, every like, comment and share helps the channel enormously.

Until next time, Bye!