Can I use wheat for SST's?

Ok so I have been looking for barley seeds or even malted barley but can't find anything locally. I know I could order online, but prefer to keep things local. So I went back to a place I knew didn't have barley but they did have wheat and for the seed it was only $0.60/lb. I'm talking true grain wheat, not wheatgrass.

So I know wheat is used in brewing and can be used in place of barley but sadly there is very little info on what enzymes are available in malted(sprouted) wheat. Has anyone here been able to dig up info on what enzymes are in malted wheat and has anyone used it as a SST and how well did it work.

In theory just the blended sprouted grain should be good for fungal growth but I don't want to use it and find out it has enzymes that are toxic to plant growth.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

I don't know the answer to your question but
... regular barley won't work I'm pretty sure it has to be malted barley.

Thai_Lights said:

I don't know the answer to your question but
... regular barley won't work I'm pretty sure it has to be malted barley.

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Yeah you have to sprout the barley, but sadly I don't have any local sources for malted or even just barley seeds to sprout(malt) thats why I went with the wheat. Well that and the fact that it was only 60 cents for a pound.

Guess I'll be the first to try them and will let everyone know how they work for me. I'm gonna try them in my vegetable garden on a couple extra pepper plants first so it'll be a while before I can say what they do for/to cannabis. Sadly I also won't be able to give any info on exact enzymes either.

J-Icky said:

In theory just the blended sprouted grain should be good for fungal growth but I don't want to use it and find out it has enzymes that are toxic to plant growth.

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Why would wheat sprouts produce enzymes that are toxic to plant growth if it itself is a plant trying to grow?
I'd be more worried whether that grain you bought was really organic

calliandra said:

Why would wheat sprouts produce enzymes that are toxic to plant growth if it itself is a plant trying to grow?
I'd be more worried whether that grain you bought was really organic

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I work at a grain terminal... wheat number 1 grade is not organic by any means. Lots of gmo for you though.

I'm not too concerned with it being gmo or not. I only plan on sprouting it and then blending it into an enzyme loaded smoothie Honestly I'm sure most barley is probably gmo, even if it claims to be organic. Getting organic certified only pertains to the process of growing the plant to produce the seed, and has nothing to do with the source of the original seed. They could make a 100% synthetic seed and as long as it was grown using purely organic methods, the seeds made by that lab produced synthetic seed plant would be able to be labeled organic.

Oh and the my wheat seeds were sourced from a rural feed store and they are meant for use as animal feed and aren't sprayed or coated with anything. Now whether the plants they came from were sprayed before harvest, im sure they were, but they are clan enough to be used for animal feed.

So are leather boots

Thai_Lights said:

So are leather boots

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Don't understand what you mean by this?

"Clean enough for animal feed" means nothing really in terms of "food grade". I've only heard of malted barley for Sst not even regular barley. You'll never know if it "works" without a side by side of one and the other. I would suggest just order some malted barley on Amazon... cheap stuff anyways.

Plenty of people "malt" their own barley, groers and brewers alike. As for a side by side I have 2 habanero peppers that will be getting the sprouted wheat and 2 that won't. All 4 are roughly the same size, in the same size containers and in the same coco/soil mix. Only reason I said there is no real control is that they have been growing and have already started producing peppers. They have also been getting other amendments and are outside where pests could have negative effects on any of the plants. If something negative happens with the "controls" it could be argued that the wheat provided a SAR that protected those plants from the pest. Or if something negative happens to the ones getting wheat, unless its blatant, I wouldn't know if it was a pest attracted by the wheat or maybe just something with the wheat malt itself that weakened those plants allowing the pests to turn from an annoyance to fatal death blow.

Thai_Lights said:

So are leather boots

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omg that, in conjunction with your working at a grain terminal conjures up those stomach-turning images of turn-to-the-20th century industrial foods production as described by -- I think Upton Sinclair it was?! haha

J-Icky said:

I'm not too concerned with it being gmo or not. I only plan on sprouting it and then blending it into an enzyme loaded smoothie Honestly I'm sure most barley is probably gmo, even if it claims to be organic. Getting organic certified only pertains to the process of growing the plant to produce the seed, and has nothing to do with the source of the original seed. They could make a 100% synthetic seed and as long as it was grown using purely organic methods, the seeds made by that lab produced synthetic seed plant would be able to be labeled organic.

Oh and the my wheat seeds were sourced from a rural feed store and they are meant for use as animal feed and aren't sprayed or coated with anything. Now whether the plants they came from were sprayed before harvest, im sure they were, but they are clan enough to be used for animal feed.

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I didn't mean organic certified, but literally really organic
The reason that's important is precisely because traces of pesticides or fungicides used on the crop that produced the wheat could still affect the microbial life in your soil, so whilst adding the SST at the same time be killing off the microherd that's supposed to process the SST for the plants.
Nitpicky? Perhaps, but it's never wrong to look for as-natural-as-possible when sourcing.
Because even for the direct purpose of your SST, grain from a wheat field whose soils were intact, providing the plants that produced the grain with full nourishment, will make your SST richer in nutrients too.

So personally, when I do sprouts smoothies, I usually just use what I have in my kitchen, because "human grade" has stricter limits than animal feed.
But if you feel comfortable with what you have, go ahead and use that wheat for your SST!

Yeah I know the soaking and rinsing would remove some traces that may be on the outside of the seeds,but theres not a lot I could do about systemic pesticides or fungicide. Like I said I'll give them a shot and obviously pesticides or fungicides would have a noticeable effect on the plants growth. Especially since I'm only giving them amendments that would need the beneficial fungus and bugs to make them available tot he plants.

I may also use some of the seeds to grow a small patch on my property to try and make sure I know that the seeds are clean. Just not sure how they will actually grow and if I'd be able to get them grown since they were likely designed to be grown in large fields with lots of chemical sprays to help them along.

But its all just an experiment and I'm hoping if this turns out good that it will give growers more options.

Buck fifty at the local home brew shop.

Well I sprouted a half cup of seeds and put it in the soil of the 2 extra peppers, habaneros, the other day. So far so good. Nothing special has happened but it hasn't hurt them either.

Edit: No I didn;t just put the sprouted seeds in the soil. I added water and blended and added that to a gallon of water and watered it into the soil.

J-Icky said:

Well I sprouted a half cup of seeds and put it in the soil of the 2 extra peppers, habaneros, the other day. So far so good. Nothing special has happened but it hasn't hurt them either.

Edit: No I didn;t just put the sprouted seeds in the soil. I added water and blended and added that to a gallon of water and watered it into the itl.

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I thought it had to be fermented before use. I'm going to make some with some wheat the next few days. I keep wheat around to grow mushrooms so I might as well try a little. I will be interested to see the results of yours.

I've been doing SST'S for over a year now, and my understanding is that any seed will work as long as it sprouts. Wheat will work just fine in my opinion. I've never used wheat though. I do run 2 SSTs a week though, one wheatgrass and one barley. I don't ferment them either. I have blended them and let them sit for awhile but I don't feel it was better for my plants. It smells horrible too when you ferment the seeds. Worse than comfrey or Nettle to me. I do recommend experimenting with these teas though. They are definitely worth your time!!

MrKnotty said:

I've been doing SST'S for over a year now, and my understanding is that any seed will work as long as it sprouts. Wheat will work just fine in my opinion. I've never used wheat though. I do run 2 SSTs a week though, one wheatgrass and one barley. I don't ferment them either. I have blended them and let them sit for awhile but I don't feel it was better for my plants. It smells horrible too when you ferment the seeds. Worse than comfrey or Nettle to me. I do recommend experimenting with these teas though. They are definitely worth your time!!

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Twice a week huh, good to know. I've seen multiple people talk about how they only use them a few times a grow, like once or two in Veg with certain seeds, and then once or twice in flowering with different seeds.
I was wondering if it was something I could use once a week or maybe once every 2 weeks but since a good amount of people were talking about ow they only used them a few times for entire grow I was thinking it would be a bad thing to use them too much. I've also heard that using too much barley or too often can have negative effects of plants, but still can't figure out why, or even what the reasoning for that would be.
I'll use the wheat once a week and see what happens with my habaneros. If nothing bad happens I'll alternate weeks with corn and wheat and toss in a couple weeks of alfalfa seed on my next grow and see how that goes.

Thanks to everyone for their responses, the more info the better for everyone and more people giving more opinions and different angles of looking at things can only help us all. Also to anyone with a question, please ask, even if I don't know the answer, maybe someone else will and it may also be a question I never even thought to ask.

Yeah adding a sprouts "tea" - actually, it's more of a smoothie - has become standard for my young plants.

I add lots of fresh plant material smoothified throughout the course of my grow.
What goes into the blender follows the logic of "like with like", based on the high probability that plants actually absorb whole building blocks - enzymes, hormones, complex amino acids/proteins, chloroplasts, mitochondria, even entire bacteria - via their roots.
So to my mind, it makes sense to add sprouts (=high in growth hormones and all the goodies needed for a nice growth spurt) when the plants are babies themselves, as well as during that growth spurt before flower. In between times, currently I am mainly watering comfrey (also fresh) smoothie, and in flower I actually add flowers and especially towards the end, fruit.

Careful of those with essential oils though! I had ONE sprig of lavender in a smoothie recently, it ruined the beautiful pineapple smell of my pineapple express for a while - actually, made it go pork roast for a bit after I tried to neutralize with some mango I had at hand lol
I finally managed to turn it around again by watering in some pineapple and letting them go a few days longer than planned.

Maybe I should add that I work with living soil, and the only other thing that goes in apart from plain tap water is the occasional handful of vermicompost.. but within that scenario, I am very happy with this approach.

Cheers!