Learn English – Word for grain ready to be harvested

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I am wondering, is there a word for grain, or produce in general, that it is ready to be harvested? I was considering ripe but this gives the connotation of completely ready and edible, but doesn't seem to be related to the harvest.

Thanks

Best Answer

The problem with 'ripe', 'mature', 'fully-grown' and similar terms is that some produce is picked before it is ripe (mature, fully-grown, etc.), and some produce is picked after it is ripe. This is true not only for contemporary agriculture, in a millieu when techniques for ripening already-harvested produce have been refined and extended to accommodate the transportation needs of a world-wide market; it is also true of agriculture historically.

This, the harvest of unripe, immature produce (or the converse, overripe produce), is as true of grain as it is of many other types of produce. Here's an example of both the historical and contemporary cases:

Way, way back — as in, pre-biblical back — in time. Try the ancient grain called, variously, freekeh, frikh, farik or freek. It's actually unripe durum wheat, harvested green and then burned to rid it of its husk. The burning imbues the grain with a slight smoky flavor.

(From "The new (ancient) grain", Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2013. Emphasis mine.)

The term 'harvest-ready' is commonly used in modern agriculture to preserve the distinction between produce that is ripe and produce that is ready to harvest, whether or not the produce is ripe.

'Harvest-ready' means just what would be supposed from the two words compounded:

ready to harvest.

That the compound 'harvest-ready' is in common use (although not readily found in dictionaries) is evidenced by the approximately 167 million hits the exact term search (+harvest-ready) produces in Google.

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