
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 4, 1990                   TAG: 9007040063
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHEAT TESTING BRINGS OUT THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

There is enough machinery and know-how at the Mennel Mills Co. to turn raw wheat into baking flour, to blend millions of bushels of grain, to move thousands of pounds of wheat in the wink of an eye, to test grain for its chemical components and to stand tractor-trailers on end.

But a vital part of the Roanoke operation still comes down to Dave Crouse's nose.

Crouse is a grain tester at the mill along Jefferson Street, across the way from Victory Stadium. Now, as the wheat harvest moves north from the Carolinas into Virginia, Crouse and all of the workers at the mill are keeping busy.

The days start early, while the shadows are still long and the sun hasn't yet baked the dust free of the gravel.

Farmers, some of whom left home before dawn, park their trucks in single file here at the western foot of Mill Mountain, waiting their turn to unload their grain. Most trucks carry 12,000 to 60,000 pounds of wheat - 200 to 1,000 bushels.

Earl Wilson climbs onto a truck and hops onto the shifting mound of loose wheat. He jabs a long stainless-steel shaft deep into the grain, extracts a 5-pound sample, and pours it into a canvas sack.

Wilson hustles the sample inside the mill to Crouse, a 12-year veteran of grain testing.

Crouse swiftly pours two samples, weighs the grain, tests its moisture content, and eyeballs it for insects, debris and deformities.

This is soft red winter wheat - grown up and down the Eastern Seaboard - and after it has been milled into flour it will be baked to make crackers, cookies and cakes. Wheat grown in the Great Plains states is preferable for baking bread.

Crouse stands shaking a sifter full of wheat, a prospector searching not for gold nuggets, but for impurities. His findings will help determine the price paid to the grower - clean, dry wheat fetches full price, the value drops when the dirt and the moisture increase.

The true litmus test comes when Crouse shoves his nose into the pan and inhales deeply. He is trying to detect the aroma of wild onions - some call it wild garlic - in the grain. It is as common a weed in grain fields as it is on suburban lawns. The onion's seeds are tiny bulbs, small enough to hide between grains of wheat, pungent and juicy enough to spoil any baker's tarts. Put too many onion bulbs through the mill's rollers and the whole operation has to be shut down for a thorough washing.

And so Crouse sniffs and probes, and if he finds too many onion bulbs to suit his tastes, he can reject the entire load of wheat or offer to pay far less for the grain as a cattle feed supplement. Wheat was flirting around the $3.35-per-bushel price early this week, though feed wheat would fetch less than a dollar per bushel.

Testing the grain is a science - Crouse has attended seminars at Kansas State University and his textbook includes full color photographs of damaged grains of wheat.

But only his nose can pinpoint the onions. Some things, you can't study in school. Or you don't have to.

by CNB