Saga of the Grain
A Tribute to Minnesota Cultivated Wild Rice Growers

Ervin Oelke

ISBN: 0-913163-41-4
Order Number: 12007
Price: $34.95

Over the course of many centuries, humans have domesticated and improved white rice, wheat, corn, and many other crops. It has been only in the last half of the twentieth century that wild rice started on the road to domestication. The challenges were great, but exciting, in the development of this newly cultivated crop.

This remarkable story of the transformation of wild rice by growers, entrepreneurs, and scientists makes for compelling reading. Read this book with a nostalgic sense of history as well as seeing the story of how a new field crop was and can be developed.

About the Author:
Ervin A. Oelke developed his interest in agriculture while growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. He served in the U.S. Army in Germany and then earned his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in agronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He researched the production of wild rice at the University of California-Davis. He joined the University of Minnesota agronomy faculty in 1968 and retired in 2000. During his tenure he became known as a national and international expert in wild rice cultivation.In writing this book, Oelke reflects upon and portrays the fascinating story of the hardships and successes of the wild rice growers and industry. He shares his unique opportunity to be a firsthand witness of a wild plant becoming a cultivated crop on its way to domestication.

144 pages, 2007, hardcover