--- title: An Italian Farmer Found Some Unknown Seeds in His Attic... description: An Italian farmer named Claudio Grossi found unidentified seeds in his attic in the early 1990s and planted them in a manure pile. They grew into a... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/an-italian-farmer-found-some-unknown-seeds-in-his-attic-and-planted-them-memccytvk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: An Italian Farmer Found Some Unknown Seeds in His Attic and Planted Them | daily.dev og:description: An Italian farmer named Claudio Grossi found unidentified seeds in his attic in the early 1990s and planted them in a manure pile. They grew into a... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/an-italian-farmer-found-some-unknown-seeds-in-his-attic-and-planted-them-memccytvk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/mEMCcytvK.png og:image:alt: An Italian Farmer Found Some Unknown Seeds in His Attic and Planted Them og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # An Italian Farmer Found Some Unknown Seeds in His Attic and Planted Them **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 12 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An Italian farmer named Claudio Grossi found unidentified seeds in his attic in the early 1990s and planted them in a manure pile. They grew into a six-foot-tall wheat with seven ears per stalk, later identified as Triticum turgidum, or poulard wheat. Lab analysis found it richer in phosphorus, iron, lysine and tryptophan, with less gluten than modern wheat. Grossi named it grano del miracolo and got it stocked by organic grain company Molino Grassi. During Sicily's 2024 drought, many commercial wheat growers abandoned their fields, while most farmers growing ancient grains were able to harvest. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is grano del miracolo and how is it different from regular wheat? Grano del miracolo, or 'miracle wheat,' is an ancient variety of Triticum turgidum (poulard wheat) that grows up to six feet tall, twice the height of commercial wheat, and produces seven grain-studded ears per stalk instead of one. Lab analysis found it richer in phosphorus, iron, lysine, tryptophan and arginine than modern wheat, with less gluten. _Anyone weighing heritage grains against modern wheat can track findings like these on daily.dev._ ### Why did ancient wheat varieties like poulard wheat fall out of use in favor of modern wheat? Ancient wheat varieties like poulard wheat were replaced by shorter, higher-yielding commercial strains during agricultural pushes such as Mussolini's 1920s 'Battle of Wheat' campaign and the midcentury Green Revolution led by Norman Borlaug. These newer varieties produced more grain but were less resilient to weeds and disease, requiring fertilizer, herbicides and fungicides to sustain yields. _Readers tracking tradeoffs between yield and resilience in farming can follow this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 45 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-11-01). **TL;DR:** Commenters find the story interesting but dig into the practical tradeoffs of tall heritage wheat (drought/weed resistance vs. lodging risk), while a side debate erupts over the article's title and its biblical framing. **Sentiment:** 35% positive · 45% mixed · 20% skeptical **The case for** - Tall ancient wheat can outcompete weeds and tolerate drought without fertilizer or herbicides. - Mixing ancient tall grain with shorter varieties can add structural stability without chemicals. - Tall stalks have historical uses beyond grain, like building material and easier hand threshing. - Ancient grains reportedly have less gluten, which some think could matter for people with gluten sensitivity. **The pushback** - Height makes the wheat prone to lodging (falling over) in wind, rain, and hail, risking the harvest. - Mixing crop heights complicates harvesting and selling since buyers want a uniform, known crop. - One commenter argues the grain is mostly a novelty, far less productive than modern dwarf varieties bred specifically to avoid storm losses. - Claims about it being an unsubstantiated product-promotion piece rather than agronomically rigorous. - A commenter pushes back hard on gluten-sensitivity claims, saying true non-celiac gluten sensitivity is largely unsupported by evidence. **By community** - hackernews (mixed): Interest in the agronomy and backstory is tempered by skepticism about the headline, the biblical reference, and the wheat's practical value versus modern dwarf varieties. **Hottest debate:** Whether the tall heritage wheat is a genuinely useful rediscovery or just a novelty/product-promotion story compared to modern dwarf wheat varieties. **Open questions** - Could a harvester or farming method be developed to efficiently separate mixed-height crops? - Does ancient wheat's lower gluten content actually make a meaningful difference for non-celiac gluten sensitivity? - Would reintroducing century-old heritage seeds into modern farmland pose any ecological risks? **Highlights** > These are all just unsubstantiated claims from someone promoting a product. The reason the entire world switched to dwarf varieties is that full height wheat falls over in heavy storms and this can lead to a loss of entire harvests and major famines. This grain, while interesting, is far far less productive than modern varieties and less efficient to grow. It's valuable for genetic diversity and rediscovering it is wonderful and valuable, but it is more or less worthless for farmers as anything other than a novelty. > — [ltbarcly3 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50321672) > Short grains are modern; - allow modern machines to harvest it more easily - move slighly more of the plants energy into the seed - prevent wind damage. (small farms bordered with trees was more typical historically) On the historical side; - The long stalks allow the crop to be bundled and dried without the seed touching the ground. - It makes the stalks themselves useful as a building material in walls, roofs, isolation, bedding. - It makes for a good grip as the seeds are pulled form the stalks with an historical thresher. In short, we didn't start breeding grains to be short until modern post industrial farming techniques. Short grain does provide better yield on industrial mono-crop farming. But would have been seen as worse historically. > — [aDyslecticCrow on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50321639) > This is a great practical approach, but when you harvest the crop you get a mix of higher crop and lower crop. It is more difficult to sell some mix than a pure crop with known properties. Technically, it would be possible to build a harvester with two cutters at different heights to separate the crops, but I've never seen one. > — [hommelix on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50321507) > Gluten allergies are relatively rare and extreme. People with Celiac have a major, sometimes life threatening reaction to gluten. People who do not have Celiac and say they are gluten sensitive usually are not. They are either experiencing a nocebo effect or have gas from other components of wheat rather than gluten. Actual non Celiac reactions to gluten are minor if they exist at all. So when someone says they are gluten sensitive it is overwhelmingly likely they either have Celiac and even a very very tiny amount of gluten will cause them horrible consequences, or they are incorrect and they are not sensitive to gluten at all. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27523634/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29102613/ > — [ltbarcly3 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50321716) > As the article clearly states it was the farmer himself who made the initial ID of the grain based on a bible passage he heard at church. It’s not a quote the Smithsonian added for the hell of it. If a straightforward account of a story offends your sensibilities, rather than complaining, simply move on. > — [EA-3167 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50321612) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50320963) · 98 points · 45 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Know Your Food: Our Daily Bread](https://daily.dev/posts/know-your-food-our-daily-bread-cfipmul4a) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Canopii looks to succeed where past indoor farms have not](https://daily.dev/posts/canopii-looks-to-succeed-where-past-indoor-farms-have-not-wehkfztrb) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Precision Agriculture Tech Can Address New Fertilizer Shortages](https://daily.dev/posts/precision-agriculture-tech-can-address-new-fertilizer-shortages-xwcgtaetv) · IEEE Spectrum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Plants appear to detect the patter of falling rain](https://daily.dev/posts/plants-appear-to-detect-the-patter-of-falling-rain-j6flcn2ia) · MIT Technology Review · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Plants can sense the sound of rain, a new study finds](https://daily.dev/posts/plants-can-sense-the-sound-of-rain-a-new-study-finds-f6c7arynx) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/an-italian-farmer-found-some-unknown-seeds-in-his-attic-and-planted-them-memccytvk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"An Italian Farmer Found Some Unknown Seeds in His Attic and Planted Them","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/an-italian-farmer-found-some-unknown-seeds-in-his-attic-and-planted-them-memccytvk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/an-italian-farmer-found-some-unknown-seeds-in-his-attic-and-planted-them-memccytvk"},"datePublished":"2026-10-31T23:56:44.106Z","dateModified":"2026-11-01T00:31:40.978Z","description":"An Italian farmer named Claudio Grossi found unidentified seeds in his attic in the early 1990s and planted them in a manure pile. 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