New England heirloom corn grown on its native land for the first time in 300 years

boing
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Well you can just grow chickpeas. “High yield” with existing varietals, heirloom or otherwise has more to do with your climate conditions and soil. Along with how much space and time you can dedicate to it.

If you’ve never gotten a serious chunk of your food from gardening or farming, it takes quite a lot of work and room. You aren’t doing it on a small back garden. My grandfather had a small subsistence farm thing going for a long time, feed his 10 kids on the cheep. It provided most of the produce, carbs and a big chunk of the meat/eggs and dairy for my mom’s family growing up. And then a lot for my family after he retired (we was broke).

It was about a half acre to an acre of heavily rotated plots. Along with multiple out buildings for the animals. And practically speaking a full time job for multiple people. Largely my mom and her siblings.

Like I said you don’t need a new variety for that. We have that. And no new variety is going to change how it works.

At home the issue is more milling. IIRC chickpeas and other peas can usually be ground in a food processor or blender. Which isn’t the case with grains. But other types of peas and beans aren’t neccisarily suited for use as a neutral flour, as they’re often pretty strongly flavored. Green and yellow pea flours taste pretty strongly of peas, black bean flour is used for black bean things.

That seems to be why gram is more of a thing. It’s more flexible down to it’s fairly neutral flavor. I hear white bean flour is quite good as well. Which makes sense they’re have a pretty mild, savory creamy thing going on.

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I’ve gardened before. Chickpeas come two to the pod, not a great yield per pod. I love them raw: they taste like raw peanuts but with lower starch and fat.

To me, the strong flavor of a black bean would be an advantage if subbing for corn or flour in Indian or Latinx recipes. This might make them superior for canning, too. I’ve canned black beans with Latinx herbs and spices and they were superb.

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You might try mayacoba beans for flour. They are mildly flavored, high fat, and cook quickly.

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Yield would be more down to number of pods per plant, along with the number of plants per acre.

And higher yield goes hand in hand with higher input. More water, more fertilizer, more labor, and more impact on the land soil.

Very much what I’m talking about when it takes land and work to feed yourself this way.

When we talk about improving crops for developing areas. We tend to be talking about improving yields with limited inputs, or improving nutrition where diets are severely limited.

When we talk about doing so for commercial agriculture it tends to be about improved sustainability, and lessening impact.

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