my wheatgrass growing in 10 x 20 tray and no mold!

[MysticTree]

I don't juice it every day but I would like too. I don't juice the regrowth. I give it to my hens. They like it so much. I'm going to make a second hen run and seed the existing run with wheat. Then when it's grown good and strong I'll let the hens back and seed the second run. I need to buy a big sack of wheat grain!

[dmb2002man]

How many ounces do you get from a full tray? Looks like the next crop is growing well already. I can't wait to get started.

I am not sure but i have juiced the last 3 days and still have a whole bag left. So by the time my second batch finishes I will probably be done with the first round. Seems it goes a long ways with the juicer i have.

[dmb2002man]

Is the light from your window all the light it gets/ needs?

Yup that's all the light it gets and needs. Doesn't get much from the window but its still growing great. I water it alot and keep the bottom roots moist with the fan running at all times. Then like once a day i will rotate that tray around so the part that is touching the window will be on the fan side.

[dmb2002man]

my second batch of wheatgrass is about finished growing and ready to cut. Yesterday i tried carrot/wheatgrass together in the manual juicer and it worked out pretty well. Im pretty excited about both and a friend of mine is suppose to come over to check out my vitamix and manual juicer since she wants to start eating healthy and was explaining to her to the other day how most people these days dont get the correct nutrients at all.

[Living Food]

dmb2002man, it seems like you're saying that you harvested all of the wheatgrass at once, but have only been juicing a little a day? It is much better to only harvest it as you use it, so that the grass is still fresh and alive right up until you consume it. Although a certain compound in wheatgrass increases about 40 times over a few hours after harvest (the name escapes me right now), the rest of the nutrients will have gone way down, especially if you harvested it days ago.

Just a thought.

[dmb2002man]

dmb2002man, it seems like you're saying that you harvested all of the wheatgrass at once, but have only been juicing a little a day? It is much better to only harvest it as you use it, so that the grass is still fresh and alive right up until you consume it. Although a certain compound in wheatgrass increases about 40 times over a few hours after harvest (the name escapes me right now), the rest of the nutrients will have gone way down, especially if you harvested it days ago.

Just a thought.

So are you saying to just cut enough each day off when i juice it and leave the rest going. It would take alot longer then to finish the first batch on a tray and as you cut it the cut part would continue to grow so how would you even know when your done with the second batch.

I did cut the batch off all at once and then i add to fridge in zip lock bag with paper towel. I've read on multiple websites that it will last in fridge and stay fresh from 7-10 days. Well I am finished with my first batch of juicing and now on my second. I juice 1 to 2 oz per day only. I actually started sprouting another 1.5 cups of the organic red berry wheatgrass and going to plant it today after work.

[MysticTree]

I did cut the batch off all at once and then i add to fridge in zip lock bag with paper towel. I've read on multiple websites that it will last in fridge and stay fresh from 7-10 days. Well I am finished with my first batch of juicing and now on my second. I juice 1 to 2 oz per day only. I actually started sprouting another 1.5 cups of the organic red berry wheatgrass and going to plant it today after work.

It stays fresher if you leave it growing. Just cut and juice as you go.

[dmb2002man]

It stays fresher if you leave it growing. Just cut and juice as you go.

It says 7 days in airtight container without washing it. This is what I've been doing and before i juice it wash it off with cold water only. I will leave it growing with the seeds that I am sprouting now.

http://www.all-about-juicing.com/grow-wheatgrass.html

I see on this website it says to not even use the second batch as it will lose nutrients. I did notice my first batch was a little more green than the second.

http://www.wheatgrassman.com/site/1538595/page/621650

[MysticTree]

It says 7 days in airtight container without washing it. This is what I've been doing and before i juice it wash it off with cold water only. I will leave it growing with the seeds that I am sprouting now.

http://www.all-about-juicing.com/grow-wheatgrass.html

I see on this website it says to not even use the second batch as it will lose nutrients. I did notice my first batch was a little more green than the second.

http://www.wheatgrassman.com/site/1538595/page/621650

Cutting it as and when you want to juice it means getting optimum nutrients - you do need to time the batches so that you don't ave a glut one minute and nothing the next. I give all the regrowth to me hens. They love it.

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

dmb2002man, it seems like you're saying that you harvested all of the wheatgrass at once, but have only been juicing a little a day? It is much better to only harvest it as you use it, so that the grass is still fresh and alive right up until you consume it.

Funny enough, testing has now shown that cutting the entire tray of wheatgrass on the exact day the jointing appears is the best thing to do...much better than cuttimng more off the same tray batch the next day. Growing wheatgrass an extra day is not good because the nutrition concentration actually goes down and the quality quickly declines in the cerial grasses; experts Michael Bergonzi (considered the world's best wheatgrass grower), Viktoras Kulvinskas and even HHI now do this when necessary. As Micheal says, each day it passes the jointing stage the grass massively ages and deteriorates. l agree. So it is actually best to harvest the entire tray on the jointing day and refrigerate the rest of the grass. lt is perhaps the only land food known that will stay nutritionally in tact for an entire week in a refrigerator.

l don't like that crop of wheatgrass. Some of the grass has gone to jointing stage at an inch high and some of the taller blades of grass are still single bladed. l wouldn't be happy with that grass at all....short and nasty. l would look for better seeds. l've had similar crops before, they are never good.

This is how well grown wheatgrass should look: (master grower Micheal Bergonzi)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BsEEW8Dor8...h/DSCF0139.JPG

He also gave a good talk recently about this same issue.

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Cutting it as and when you want to juice it means getting optimum nutrients - .

Not with cerial grasses. They reach a peak on a special day and then sharply decline in concentrated nutrition.

[MysticTree]

Not with cerial grasses. They reach a peak on a special day and then sharply decline in concentrated nutrition.

Jeez I might as well go back to cooked food for all your pronouncements about nutrition. You are so contradictory.

[Living Food]

Very interesting. I know that the jointing stage is when the grass has the most minerals, but was under the impression that it was just before the jointing stage that the grass has the most energy and nutrients?

I understand the rationale about harvesting the whole crop so it doesn't go past it's prime, but I still don't like it - I doubt the life energy would remain in the grass for very long after it is cut. Maybe it's better then letting it go past its prime, but I'm glad that I juice the whole tray at once so I don't have to worry about it.

The nutrition level in grass steadily increases every day until it reaches the jointing stage, after which it rapidly decreases; this is because the jointing stage is when the grain head (still tiny in size and in the middle of the stalk) starts receiving all of the nutrients that were stored in the wheatgrass. Therefore, I think that if you're only going to juice a little of the grass at a time, you should start a few days before the jointing stage and time it so that your last batch of juice was harvested when the grass was at its prime. The juices before that may not have had optimal levels of nutrients, but I still think it's better then harvesting it all at the grasses prime and then storing it for a week. No matter what anyone else says, I'm still convinced that the grass will have lost considerable nutrients a week after harvest, and more importantly the life energy would be gone, whereas if you harvest a little every day it will still be there.

[MysticTree]

and, bear in mind I at least don't have a fridge even if you lot do.

[Living Food]

Not with cerial grasses. They reach a peak on a special day and then sharply decline in concentrated nutrition.

That's true, but I'm still skeptical that storing it for a week is better then juicing a little at a time. I still believe that the nutrition would deteriorate rapidly after it is cut.

Growing the grass outdoors would solve most of these problems. Growing wheatgrass indoors and forcing it to grow so rapidly is greatly inferior compared to allowing it to mature on its own outdoors in a natural environment.

That said, many people don't have the room to do that and wheatgrass grown indoors is still far better then no wheatgrass at all.