Three days, four hundred growers, one splendid dispute over wheat protein. Alex reports from Paris.
The Harvest gathering is the single week I can leave the fields without guilt. This year's thread was resilience — varieties that keep calm in a dry spring, soils that store water, and contracts that split risk between grower and miller rather than loading it all onto the grower.
Lessons worth keeping
Two findings suit our ground. First, a new hard red line kept 13% protein through last year's drought across three sites — seed is booked for a forty-acre test this autumn. Second, strip-till wheat behind cover crops beat full tillage by six percent on light land like ours. The drill can already do it; the rotation map needs the pencil.
“The finest session had no stage. Six growers round a café table, trading dockage numbers like fishermen trading tales.”
The frank disputes were the value. Millers seek steadiness, growers seek fairness, and everyone left agreed that open grading — published specs, shared laboratory sheets — is the path ahead. We already trade that way, so hearing the hall agree felt good.
What shifts at home
One test strip, one rotation adjustment, and a fresh sample scheme for buyers keen to bake next year's varieties before committing. If you mill, write to us — trial flour lands by spring.
