 Hi, my name is Rick Mitleider, I'm an organic farmer from Tappan, North Dakota. We've been certified organic for 35 plus years and we use buckwheat in our organic rotation. We put a lot of acres in every year, it's a tremendous wheat suppressant. We grow on our farm, we grow wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat. It is an out of high nitrogen user so we plug it in towards the end of our rotation. It works very well, say if you have an eight or ten year rotation where you have clover in one year and alfalfa in a three year period there, that's how our rotation we do down there. And I plug it in towards the end because it doesn't take much nitrogen, it really cleans your ground. It's a very good, very tough, we're very dry there as they are here too, we're very dry. During the day you walk your fields just right now and you think there ain't much hope but I tell you, if you get an inch of rain it's unbelievable how it'll respond back, you know. Here at their tests they've got different varieties in, I mainly grow Manor and Koto on my farm. As far as yields, I really don't notice a whole lot of difference. One field is better here and one field better there, I notice very little difference as far as yield that way. Planting dates, I like to plant buckwheat in our soil, we farm a sandier loam soil, most of our soil. And the planting dates are, I like to start around the 25th of May to the 5th of June. But the main thing every year you got to watch because if it's really a cold spring buckwheat don't take no frost and it'll come up normally in five to eight days, it's up. This year in the sixth day you had a good percentage of it up, it depends upon the temperatures. But so from the 25th of May to the 5th of June, now a lot of people see their buckwheat far later than that. I've got neighbors at Lash, I watched one neighbor see it July 8th, he still had a buckwheat crop. I would not recommend that, most years I think you'd be, you would really be against the quality issue, test weight issues, color issues, but I like to see it a little bit earlier, it works way well for us. One thing about planting our buckwheat, most of it we plow pachypone in, which not many people do anymore. But we also air seed our fair amount of our buckwheat in, and that can work very well too. I like to seed that a little bit later, I'm towards the end of my seeding date, what we air seed her in. Just for weed issues and stuff, and one thing about buckwheat, it grows like no other crop. I've grown sorghum, I've grown millet, I've grown rye every year, and all them are very vigorous growers. But there's nothing that grows like buckwheat, when it comes out of the ground in five or six days normally, and it competes and chokes out weeds like you wouldn't believe. If you have moisture, within a couple weeks after it's out of the ground, the ground is covered. This year it's very dry, so it's really wilted during the day, which they're dry here. This is a morning of course, and right now you see where it's not wilted much. If it gets 90 like they're saying this afternoon in the next few days, it'll look a lot different come this afternoon. But it can look really tough and you get rain and you'd never recognize the field in three or four days, so it's very drought-hardy. One thing about buckwheat before you plant it, work on having a home for it, because it's not something that's easily sold. Rye and buckwheat are two crops that find a contract on it before you grow it. It's one thing I highly recommend as far as harvesting of it. Normal years buckwheat will grow about waist tall. Some years if it's real wet or you have it on heavy soil it can get five or six feet tall, and then it lodges most of the time. That's not good. I'd rather have a knee tall to waist tall field. Usually it'll put more seed on than that five or six feet tall stuff. Harvesting, a gentleman taught me one time, Bill Christensen from Minnesota, he was kind of the buckwheat guru, and he said, when he went by, and that's what I watch when we are swatting it, we swat it all, and you take a handful in your field, go several places in your field, take a handful, tip it upside down, and of approximately two thirds of the kernels are colored in black, it's time to put it on the ground. That's what Bill taught me, and I found that to be a good rule. It will shell very easy in the fall, so one thing to be careful for is, if you have two thirds colored and you have a real nice set coming, sometimes your later set's better than your earlier set. So then watch the wind. If you hear the forecast for big winds coming, get it on the ground. If you've got some calm winds for a few days, you can leave it a little bit longer and wait for that last set, otherwise don't get greedy, or it'll be on the ground and you'll lose a lot of it, you know. Calmbine's very easy. When it's dry, when it's tough, it's really tough. You can have a windrow buckwheat and you swear it's just like wire calmbine in it, but when it's dry, you can have a monster's windrow and it goes through like butter. Very fun crop to grow. Our seeding rates on our farm, we usually put about 65 pounds, it is my goal, that's a little heavier than they recommend, but it works well for me like that. If you get a little problem with, if you ever have crusting issues or little hail issues, you still have enough, you know what I mean, for yourself left after the elements have got to rest. So I like to seed about 65 pounds, that's our goal. When I air seed it, I usually try about 70 pounds, but Plough Packard Pony is about 65 pounds. It's a fun crop to grow. It's a tremendous weed suppressant. I've made the comet many times, it's the organic man's roundup. If you have a weed problem like quackgrass or other weed problem, if you put buckwheat on buckwheat a couple of years in a row, it cleans stuff up like you wouldn't believe it. One issue I haven't talked about yet is volunteer issue. Buckwheat can volunteer, it does volunteer very aggressively. The best thing after you harvest it in the fall, if you can get in there, whether you want to dig it shallow or go in with the harrow, just move it around a little bit, get it covered up so that right away is when you get some moisture, if it's dry, if you get some moisture, it comes right away. You've got one flush coming. You're going to have more than one flush coming though. There's no question about that. Following, what do I follow it with after buckwheat? A lot of times after buckwheat, I'll put a legume in the next year. I have worked with a legume with buckwheat. I don't like doing that because if you get a good crop of buckwheat, your legume is not good at all. And our goal is of course getting the best crop of buckwheat we can get. So what I like to do is I'll put it in the next year. I'll put it in with wheat a lot of times and I realize wheat takes quite a little nitrogen, but my goal is, my main goal is to, I'm not worried about getting 60 bush of wheat or anything like that. My goal is to grow quality wheat, but to get a good crop of clover or alfalfa started. And wheat works really good with that. You can clean buckwheat out of wheat. I got a local cleaner there, does a great job. Most years it's not a problem at all. If you get it in early, a lot of times what'll happen is the soil will warm up a little bit where you'll get a flush coming again. And then a lot of times it'll freeze and it gets down to 32 or 31 degrees. It's dead. So it kills it off and your wheat gets, takes off and gets going and you have no issues whatsoever. I haven't had big issues with volunteer, but I've understood, I understand how to work and I've used it and grown it many years. But I'd recommend as a new beginner ask some people that are buckwheat growers what works for them to control volunteer buckwheat. Rye and buckwheat and millet are crops that can really be a volunteer issue. So just stay on top of that and if you can find somebody that's an experienced grower that'll talk to you, a man sit down and visit with them and they can coach on it.