Red Fife wheat

Red Fife was the baking and milling industries standard of 'wheat' in Canada from 1860 to 1900. The origin is a mystery. Sent to Peterborough Ontario farmer Fife in 1840, it took its name from the seed color and Fife's name. Seed was to have been obtained from a ship sitting in Glasgow port. It is possible Mennonite farmers in the Vistula delta of Poland grew the wheat that was shipped out of the port of Danzig. Red Fife is one of many 'heritage' varieties being grown globally by people interested in variety identified food products. many modern varieties of wheat lists heritage varieties of wheats brought to Canada or developed and named in Canada. There are no native wheats in Canada. All wheat has come to Canada from other parts of the world.

Red Fife Wheat's origin is a mystery. Perhaps it originated in the Vistula delta of what is now Poland, then shipped from Danzig to Glasgow, where a friend of David Fife sent a sample to Canada. Fife then grew the variety in Ontario and shared it with other farmers, calling the wheat Red Fife after its distinctive color on his land. Red Fife wheat kernels are not always red in color. The Red Fife seed adapted to a great diversity of growing conditions across Canada and became the baking and milling industry standard for forty years, from the 1860s to the turn of the twentieth century.

Marquis wheat was developed from crossing Red Fife with Hard Red Calcutta. Marquis took over Red Fife's place in the early 1900s and then Thatcher in the 1930s.

For most of the twentieth century, Red Fife was grown in very small quantities in plant breeders’ seed collections. Interest in growing heritage wheat started with Sharon Rempel in the mid 1980s, when she planted a "Living Museum of Wheat" at a living history site in Keremeos B.C. Canada. She was given a pound of plant breeder seed of varieties Red Fife, Ladoga, Bishop, Preston, Hard Red Calcutta, Marquis and Stanley. She bulked up seed and shared it with others. The seeds and wheat field, heritage gardens and landscapes can be considered 'living artifacts'. (Sharon Rempel source)

Jennifer Scott and organic farmers in the Maritimes began to grow heritage wheats in the mid 1990s. In 1999, Onoway, Alberta farmer Kerry Smith began growing Red Fife and other historic varieties. In 2000, 2001 and 2002, the Alberta Organic Association’s Walter Walchuk, along with Rempel, co-hosted organic heritage wheat field trials throughout Alberta.

Red Fife was nominated to the Slow Food Ark of Taste in 2003 by Mara Jernigan and Sinclair Phillip of Slow Food Canada. This was the first heritage wheat put on the Ark. This is confirmed by Sharon Rempel, the godmother of Red Fife wheat's revival in Canada.

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Wikipedia