Hard Red Spring Wheat

Three market classes of wheat are typically grown: hard red winter wheat, hard red spring wheat and durum wheat.

Hard red spring wheat is grown principally in North and South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and the Prairie Provinces of Canada, where the winters are too severe to grow winter wheat.

It may be grown in other areas to replace winter wheat that has failed due to winter killing, drought or other causes.

The principle hard red spring wheat districts have a fairly deep black soil and dry, hot summers, both important factors in the production of a high grade wheat suitable for milling as bread flour.

Hard red spring wheat is divided into three subclasses according to its content of dark, hard, and vitreous kernels. These subclasses are:
*Dark northern spring wheat – hard red spring wheat with 745% or more of dark, hard and vitreous kernels
*Northern spring wheat- hard red spring wheat with 25% or more but less 75% dark, hard and vitreous kernels
*Red spring wheat – hard red spring wheat with less 25% of dark, hard and vitreous kernels.

Overall, hard red spring accounts for about 20% of the total wheat acreage in the United States. This class of wheat is typically used for making pan, hearth bread and rolls.

The highest quality breads are made from hard red spring wheat. This due to it has highest amount of gluten of the commonly grown wheats.
Hard Red Spring Wheat

Hard Red Winter Wheat

It is a general rule throughout the world that wherever winter wheat can be successfully grown, it will be grown in preference to spring wheat.

There are five primary classes of wheat germ in the United States:
*Hard red winter wheat
*Hard red spring wheat
*Soft red winter wheat
*White wheat
*Durum wheat

The predominant class of wheat grown in the United States is hard red winter. A hard wheat has a kernel that is high in protein and gluten content. The wheat is milled to make bread and is produced throughout the Midwest.

Hard red winter is grown chiefly on the Great Plains, particularly in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, where annual precipitation average less than 25 inches, frequent dry periods occurs, and winters produce subzero temperature.

Cultivation of wheat in the Central Great Plains began in earnest when Russian Mennonite immigrants brought the hard red winter wheat variety to Kansas around 1874, although wheat was grown in Kansas prior to this.

In many sections of the Southwest, where moisture is marginal, it is customary to alternate growing of wheat crop with a year of summer fallowing to conserve moisture. Much of wheat farming in the Southwest is on very large farms that use the largest available equipment.

Winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in mid to late summer. Spring wheat is planted in thee early spring and harvested in the late summer and early fall.

Planting in the fall permits the plant to establish a root system before the dormancy period starts and thus makes it possible for the plants to more effectively use spring moisture, warmth, and sunshine, the farmer who sows his fields in late fall or early winter encounters none of the spring delay which would be caused by waiting until the field becomes sufficiently dry to cultivate.

At planting, the seeds are placed in the ground using an implement called a grain drill. The drill places seeds in close rows (6 to 12 inches apart) at the proper depth in the soil.

Hard Red Winter Wheat