In Spring of 2025, the Foodshed Alliance’s Local Grains Project and Sustainable Agriculture Enterprise (SAgE) Land Access Program are working together with grain expert and Agronomist, Elizabeth Dyck to establish an almost 2-acre grains demonstration plot at the SAgE Farm in Andover. This project, right along Route 206,  is an effort to showcase not only the beauty that small grains and specialty crops can bring to our landscapes, but also how they can increase the diversity of food available to our communities, improve our soils on land that was once receiving chemical inputs, and show local farmers some of the untapped market potential for these crops. 

With the guidance of Elizabeth, and help from Cali Alexander of NOFA NJ, and SAgE Farmer Pete Tischler of Seek No Further Fruit Farm, the SAgE team has seeded a range of grains in their newly established demonstration plot.

 In late April, the team planted strips of hulless oats and einkorn intercropped with red clover with the Local Grains Project’s newly acquired 8250 John Deere grain drill. On the same day, they planted golden flax and brown flax plots – also interplanted with red clover.

 In early June, they used the grain drill again to plant buckwheat; and established a number of smaller example plots to showcase an incredible range of grains and legumes, including garbanzo beans, dry black beans, lentils, amaranth, adzuki beans, cow peas, chia, teff, corn, proso millet, and finger millet. The legumes were inoculated with an OMRI approved inoculant before planting. After planting, the team applied an organic OMRI certified pelletized chicken manure to each plot. As of mid-June,  all of the seeds have now begun to germinate!