The frustration in Luke Peterson's voice is palpable as he talks about how far he's come — and how far there is to go — in getting Kernza into the marketplace. "We've been working at building this rotation that's regenerating the soil," says the Minnesota farmer of diversified regenerative organic grains and grassfed beef. "If farmers don't grow it, it's never going to get anywhere. But we've had our fair share of struggles in marketing it."
Back in 2018, 10 years after it was made available to farmers, Peterson added Kernza, the trademark name for a cultivar of intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium), to his already extensive crop rotation, which includes redeemer wheat and streaker oats, buckwheat and flax, two-row barley and einkorn. The draw: the promise of this perennial grain's 12-foot taproot to enhance carbon storage, water infiltration and soil organic matter. And perhaps, one day — the dream of the team at The Land Institute, the agricultural research nonprofit that started developing Kernza 20 years ago — to introduce a crop longer-lived than the usual roster of annual grains to the landscape. According to Tessa Peters, The Land Institute's director of crop stewardship, about 60 farmers are currently growing about 4,000 acres of Kernza across the U.S. The yield is almost half a million pounds per year.
