Successful cropping of spelt

It is of high importance to adapt the cropping system to the class of varieties used. In Spelt, we roughly distinguish between two classes. There is still a market for old landraces like Oberkulmer Rotkorn, which tend to produce very tall plants (150 cm). Thus, the risk of lodging is high and the farmer should address his main focus on the reduction of plant height. This can be done by reduced fertilization, use of growth regulators and others. The second class of varieties comprise modern varieties with reduced plant height and > 25% increased grain yield. These varieties enable intensive Spelt production without large risk of lodging. Example varieties were Zollernfit, Zollernspelz, Stauferpracht, Albertino and Badenglanz (for others, see list of Bundessortenamt). Production systems with 150 kg fertilizer coupled with growth regulators are easily feasible maximizing grain yield per ha. We recommend to farmers only to grow old landraces, if cropping contracts are available which adequately compensate the lower yield as compared to modern spelt varieties.

Spelt is regularly sown as hulled kernels, which requires that the sowing machine is driven more slowly. Recently, the seed market also offers dehulled Spelt seeds. As spelt is susceptible against soil borne diseases we highly recommend seed treatments. Furthermore, spelt is also quite susceptible against powdery mildew, brown and yellow rust requiring sometimes the use of fungicides. Actually, only winter varieties exist with a vegetation period very similar to bread wheat. Although spelt was initially proposed as a crop for difficult mountainous regions, where bread wheat failed to produce high yields, it prefers however good soils with good climatic conditions maximizing its grain yield. For the harvest, we recommend to drive the combine-harvester slowly and to slightly adapt the settings.More information and a comparison to bread wheat can be found here.