Growing Quinoa in ON

I am wondering about growing quinoa, has anyone done it? It seems it has potential to grow pretty well in Ontario, and there would be a large market for it I assume. The seed seems hard to find/ expensive. I know there is a company in Ontario that has developed some Ontario-adapted seed, but they require that you sell your crop back to them, which I am not very interested in.
It would be nice to develop and grow out some regionally adapted seed that would be available to all at a good price.

I presume that you’re referring to Quinta regarding crop buyback? I don’t blame you for not wanting to be contractually tied to them in any way.

However, I believe they use strains developed at Guelph University, specifically for growing in Ontario/Quebec soils and climate. Maybe you could get in touch with someone there who could point you in the right direction to something analogous that isn’t produced through Quinta?

Yes, that is who I am referring to. I can understand why they do that, it would cost a lot of money to develop seed with CRISPR, which is I believe how it was developed. I just think it’s a better system when growers have seed options. That’s not a bad idea. Might even get my foot in the door that way for a Master’s program :grin: I will be running some Quinoa trials through the farmer led research program this year, which I am excited for.

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Very exciting @deanorr ! Can’t wait to hear/read how your trials will go! What kind of trials will you be running?

Yeah, I am looking forward to them. Some screening trials to help determine a good candidate for large scale production. Taking a couple of different metrics, and of course yield.

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