Glossary
All entries are referred to in the Toolkit and are listed in alphabetical order
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Auger
A grain auger is a device used in agriculture to transport grain. It consists of a solid shaft contained within a large tube, with flighting surrounding it. Flighting is a flat steel spiral, which is wielded into the center of the shaft. As the spiral turns in a counter-clockwise direction, the grain is pulled up, and pushed into the shaft. The grain is then deposited into a hopper, which uses gravity to deposit grain into storage bins, trucks, or trailers.
Awns
The stiff bristles growing from the ear or flower of barley, rye and many grasses, including some varieties of normally heritage wheat.
Chorley-wood process
The Chorleywood process allows the use of lower-protein wheats and reduces processing time, a loaf of bread from flour to sliced and packaged form can be produced in about three and a half hours. This is achieved through the addition of vitamin C, fat, yeast and intense mechanical working by high-speed mixers, not feasible in a small-scale kitchen.
Conditioning grain
Conditioning uses moisture to soak in to the grains for many hours to soften very dry grain prior to roller milling, or to soften 'hard'* grain prior to stone milling. Old English wheats were all 'soft' in a milling sense, unlike most modern varieties. This means that the bran tends to break off in larger bits rather than fragment, which historically was considered a bad thing (as the goal was to produce a very white flour).
Cultivator
Cultivators stir and pulverize the soil, either before planting (to aerate the soil and prepare a smooth, loose seedbed or after the crop has begun growing (to kill weeds by uprooting them, burying their leaves to disrupt photosynthesis, or a combination of both). Unlike a harrow* which disturbs the entire surface of the soil, cultivators are designed to disturb the soil in careful patterns, sparing the crop plants but disrupting the weeds.
Cyclone
A cyclone is required if you are dehulling grains without an outside outlet. It sucks up the chaff and allows it space to expel its kinetic energy.
Dehuller
A machine that removes the hulls (husks) from grain and separates out the hulled from the dehulled grains. It works in tandem with a winnower. Your dehuller is best sited on a farm, as it is a dirty process and best kept away from food processing activities. (See Cyclone)
Durum wheat
Durum in latin means "hard", and the species is the hardest of all wheats. This makes durum favorable for semolina* and pasta and less practical for bread flour. Despite its high protein content, durum does not give strength to the dough through the formation of a gluten network.
Endosperm
The part of a seed that acts as a food store for the developing plant embryo, usually containing starch with protein and other nutrients.
Farmgate Price
A basic price with the “farm gate” as the pricing point, i.e. the price of the product available at the farm, excluding any separately billed transport or delivery charge. (Can also exclude cleaning, drying, etc., ie straight off the combine.)
Flaker
A flaker consists of a pair of smooth rollers with an adjustable clearance between the two. The grains enter the flaker from a feed hopper and then fall between the rollers where they are pressed flat.
This is used to make flakes such as oat flakes(i.e. Jumbo oats) barley flakes or wheat flakes. Depending on the grain type it may be necessary to dampen the grain first to stop it fracturing and breaking the flakes. This applies to wheat but not oats.
Germination Test
Count at least 200 grains to get a % germination rate, soak them for 8 hours then let them sprout. If the germination rate is really low you can either sow the seeds thickly or get fresh seed
Gluten
Gluten forms when glutenin molecules cross-link to form a submicroscopic network attached to gliadin, which contributes viscosity and extensibility to the mix. When dough is fermented it produces CO2 bubbles, which, trapped by the gluten network, cause the dough to rise.
Generally, bread flours are high in gluten (hard wheat); pastry flours have a lower gluten content. Kneading promotes the formation of gluten strands and cross-links, creating baked products that are chewier (as opposed to more brittle or crumbly). An increased moisture content in the dough enhances gluten development, and very wet doughs left to rise for a long time require no kneading
Harrow
A harrow is a tool attached to a tractor that cuts into the soil, breaks it up and smooths the surface, often after ploughing, to prepare the seed bed. There are different types of harrow for different conditions and outcomes - disc, tine, chain, chain disk and grass harrows.
Heads of Terms
A document which sets out the terms of a commercial transaction agreed in principle between parties in the course of negotiations, and are usually entered into when parties are not yet in a position to sign a detailed contract. Heads of Terms evidence serious intent and have moral force, but do not legally compel the parties to conclude the deal on those terms or even at all.
Homozygous
Having two of the same form of gene that controls a particular characteristic and is therefore able to pass on that form only
Ley
An agricultural field covered with grass or herbage, suitable for grazing by livestock.
Liming
The effect of liming takes on average 6-7 years. It increases the pH of acidic soil, making it more alkaline, is a source of calcium and magnesium for the plants and improves water penetration. It also aids the uptake of the major plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) by plants growing on acid soils.
Lodging
The displacement of plant stems or roots from their vertical and proper placement.
Markup
Markup is the amount by which the cost of a product is increased in order to derive the selling price.
Mulch Topper
An agricultural grass mower that chops everything up so it is left as a mulch on the field
Mycotoxins
A group of naturally occurring chemicals produced by certain moulds. They can grow on a variety of different crops often under warm and humid conditions.
No-Till
No-till farming (also called zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique of growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil. It has a growing reputation for increasing soil health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Open Source
The open-source model is a decentralised model that encourages open collaboration meaning "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and noncontributors alike. The open-source movement in software began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code.
Outcrossing
The practice of introducing unrelated genetic material into a breeding line, by pollinating a plant with pollen from a different plant of the same species, often one that is unrelated or is of a different variety. This increases genetic diversity, thus reducing the probability of an individual being subject to disease or genetic abnormalities.
Pathogens
Disease-causing viruses, bacteria, fungi or protists, which can infect animals and plants.
Ploughing
Ploughing is the process of breaking, loosening the soil and turning it over for uprooting weeds and aerating the soil.
Polisher
A polisher uses a series of brushes to remove residual dust and dirt from grains prior to processing, maintaining food hygiene. It is a useful tool in managing grain mites and pests as the polisher will remove these. It works in tandem with an aspirator.
PTO shaft
A Power Take-Off (PTO) shaft is a mechanical means of transferring rotational power and torque (usually via the transmission) between an engine (e.g. on a tractor) and an implement or attachment.
Reaper Binder
A machine that cuts the standing grain crop, binds it with string into bundles called sheaves*, and then drops them on the ground at even distances apart.
Regenerative food systems/agriculture
The idea of a regenerative food system, and often more discussed a regenerative approach to agriculture, is to create a system that aims to create a net-positive impact on a continual basis. That increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services.
Roller milling
A mill that uses cylindrical rollers, either in opposing pairs or against flat plates, to crush the grain. Roller mills are used in industrial flour production. In the roller-milling process the cereal is broken up into its constituent parts and then recombined to make the flour required via a series of extractions, the germ is removed, resulting in important minerals, fats, fibre and vitamins being eliminated. After the second world war the UK government required white wheat flour to be fortified with the vitamins and minerals that had been lost. Calcium carbonate, iron, thiamine/Vitamin B1 and Nicotinic acid are added. There is considerable research to show that these synthetically produced nutrients are less bioavailable to the human body than those found naturally occurring in wholemeal stoneground flour.
Eliminating the fatty, nutritious part of the grain will reduce the rate of rancidity and so roller milled flour will keep for longer. Roller milling may also make flour more indigestible, than traditional stoneground. This coupled with high speed industrial baking methods (as opposed to the long slow fermentation of the sourdough process)
and the accompanying necessarily higher gluten flours, imported from countries such as Canada and Uzbekistan, are the principle causes for the rise in gluten intolerance.
Roguing
The process of identifying and removing plants from a crop that have undesirable characteristics, for example weak individuals of the crop plant or non-crop plants. Rogues are removed, by hand or with herbicides, to preserve the genetic purity and/or quality of the crop being grown.
Scythe
Long pole with two handles mid-way, and a long curved blade attached at the bottom of the pole. Swung in a semi-circle along the ground to cut stems. To harvest grain a cradle is attached behind the blade to guide the stalks and reduce grain spillage.
Semolina
Semolina is mostly made from the endosperm of durum wheat* and is a by-product of roller milling*.
Separator
A machine for removing dust and foreign matter from grain, for removing the husks from the products of the processing of crops, and for checking the quality of the hulled product, by-products, and hulls.
Sheaf
A bundle of grain stalks laid lengthways and tied together after reaping. The sheaves are then collected and stood up into A-shaped conical stooks*.
Soil testing
A soil sample can be analysed to determine its composition, nutrient levels and characteristics such as the pH balance. Soil testing can help to determine soil fertility and trace mineral levels, and identify any nutrient deficiencies and potential toxicities.
Stale seed bed
A false or stale seed bed is used as a non-chemical weed control technique. A seed bed is created some weeks before the seed is sown, allowing the weed seeds that have been disturbed and brought to the soil surface during cultivation to germinate, so that theyoung weeds can then be eliminated.
Stone milling
The process of using stones to grind wheat into flour is an ancient tradition. The basic principle of a fixed “bed” stone and a rotating “runner” stone has changed very little in thousands of years. The grain is ground between the stones until it becomes flour.
Tempering grain
For grain that is going to be sieved into white flour add 2-3% moisture 20 minutes prior to milling. The moisture is sieved out with the bran (see Conditioning Grain* in the glossary for clarification on the difference between tempering and conditioning grain.
Tilling
The loosening and turning of the soil to prepare the land for the sowing of crops. It can involve digging, stirring, overturning or ploughing by machine, or shovelling, picking, mattock work, hoeing or raking by hand.
Trade approved
A term used to describe a category of weighing scales that have been certified by a governmental body or recognised authority as complying with regulations for buying and selling goods by weight.
Vernalisation
Vernalisation is an exposure of the plant to a few weeks of low temperature in order to accelerate its ability to transition from vegetative to reproductive development, providing an adaptive mechanism for winter wheat to synchronize its developmental transition with seasonal changes in temperature.
YQ Population Wheat
The Organic Research Centre has been working on wheat populations since 2001/02. The YQ population was bred by making 190 crosses among 20 different parent varieties and mixing all the resulting seed. This has now been through eleven generations of natural field selection. Increased genetic diversity makes more efficient use of soil nutrients and water, lowers plant disease and pest levels and thus improves yield stability of wheat. The choice of parents was designed to produce a population which combines attractive levels of both Yield AND Quality.
* refers to items denoted in the glossary