YHK - yet another hacker news clone

An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them

66 points ecares 1 hour ago 27 comments

the-golden-one 1 hour ago | parent

Clickbait title

kayson 1 hour ago | parent

It is a pretty terrible title, but the article is interesting

croisillon 1 hour ago | parent

did they copy the Times of India? https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/discovery/italia...

jahala 1 hour ago | parent

I also found it interesting, and the title pretty much describe what happened? I don’t see the problem

PeterHolzwarth 1 hour ago | parent

Is it? It seems to describe exactly what happened: a farmer finds a sack of grain in his attic left by his great grandfather and plants them for the hell of it. Interesting things result.

gnabgib 12 minutes ago | parent

You're likely basing this on the (better) updated title.. the original included "almost biblical" in the title. Shame mods didn't document the change.

skmurphy 1 hour ago | parent

key points about wheat Gross (the Italian farmer) discovered in 1990 his attic:

+ It fared better during droughts, growing so tall that it overshadowed the weeds. It didn’t need fertilizer or herbicides.

+ It's height can be a liability. Heavy winds, rains and hail can make the tall stems flip over before the grain ripens, ruining harvests.

+ Working with the lab of Teofilo Vamerali, Perobelli determined that the grain was Triticum turgidum—literally “swollen wheat” in Latin. Known in English as “poulard wheat,” it had originally evolved in what today are Turkey, Egypt and other nearby Mediterranean countries. And searching agricultural references, Perobelli found that it had been grown in Italy, too, until farmers shifted toward higher-yield commercial varieties. That solved the mystery of the seed bag stashed away in the attic: It had survived because Grossi’s grandfather saved some of the heritage grains.

ahartmetz 45 minutes ago | parent

Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators make wheat shorter and prevent it from buckling and falling over. They aren't the most suspect chemicals, but not exactly above all suspicion neither...

benjiro29 38 minutes ago | parent

Height is a solvable problem today. Chemical growth regulators

Or you do what Claudio Grossi did, and you mix the ancient grain with short growing grains that add stability. Sometimes the solution is simpler then just throwing chemicals at the problem.

ahartmetz 23 minutes ago | parent

It seems like the genes that cause long stalks also have other benefits, otherwise they'd have been bred out a long time ago. At least that is what I figure.

skmurphy 20 minutes ago | parent

They confer advantage over many weeds according to the article.

hommelix 22 minutes ago | parent

This is a great practical approach, but when you harvest the crop you get a mix of higher crop and lower crop. It is more difficult to sell some mix than a pure crop with known properties. Technically, it would be possible to build a harvester with two cutters at different heights to separate the crops, but I've never seen one.

benjiro29 17 minutes ago | parent

You forgot about the height. It will overshadow the smaller crop, and lack of sunlight on this smaller crop may simply not produce any ears as a result. Just a "balcony farmer" but that is what i have seen with most plants that are overshadowed by dense/taller plants.

lelandfe 5 minutes ago | parent

A good story that touches on this is the Wizard and the Prophet, covering Norman Borlaug's efforts to crossbreed wheat that wasn't too tall, was resistant to blight, etc.

Retric 14 minutes ago | parent

That’s true in generation 1, but breeding isn’t a single generation. You repeat things across generations until you find a stable mix.

loufe 36 minutes ago | parent

I know I tend to like some takeaway "summary" comments on HN, but this one just feels like snippets from an LLM reading the article. What's the thinking? The original text isn't particularly long or dense, and this isn't commentary.

barney54 31 minutes ago | parent

What do you mean “what’s the thinking?”

skmurphy 31 minutes ago | parent

I think the meaning was "why did you write this?"

skmurphy 31 minutes ago | parent

It's hand curated verbatim extracts designed to encourage HN members to read the full article. The clickbait title does not provide accurate context for the article which details events from 1990.

Reasonable people may differ and your mileage may vary. What were your key takeaways from the article?

I left out the points about shortcomings of Bourlag's wheat and the value of genetic diversity in a population. But my focus was to encourage people to read an article I found significant.

On a side note I don't use AI to craft HN comments beyond sometimes using Grammarly to check them for basic errors.

tmaly 51 minutes ago | parent

This is interesting for people with gluten allergies, maybe there is a way they could one day consume the ancient wheat.

profquail 4 minutes ago | parent

That day could be today: https://www.molinograssi.it/en/retail-line/miracolo-line/

caretrs 14 minutes ago | parent

Wouldn't this cause ecosystem issues if seeds from 100 years ago get planted in the same area?

timcobb 13 minutes ago | parent

No these require human cultivation to survive.

comrade1234 8 minutes ago | parent

Many farmers here in Switzerland grow urdinkel - ancient spelt. In the USA most farmers grew it also until around the 1920s but then a new wheat came out that was easier to process. Spelt has thicker hulls and wears down the mill faster so the mills switched to the new wheat and the farmers all had to switch too.

Based on the name I think ur (ancient) Dinkel (spelt) is even older than regular spelt but I'm not sure. All I know is that it makes great crackers but terrible pasta and ok bread but not great.

mech422 1 minute ago | parent

I think I saw this movie... :-P