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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 31, 2010 20:21:07 GMT -5
So I've been collecting feral wheat all week long... I've driven around 40 miles along backroads, and even stopped along a main highway to collect wheat. There is a lot of variety in colors, and height, and kernel size. It's been fun. I'm not much interested in growing wheat, but my landlady would love it if I planted a few hundred plants.
One thing I thought was interesting is that so far I have not found feral wheat growing in any irrigated location. I wonder if it does not compete well with perennial grasses?
Regards, Joseph
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Post by Alan on Aug 4, 2010 23:16:52 GMT -5
A couple years ago I accessed a large variety of Iraqi wheats. The very stuff human civilation was founded upon, grown in the fertile crescent for a few thousand years before we decided to rape Iraq (and the Abu Ghrab seed bank) and burn the seed. I picked most of it up through Gatersleben and some through friends stationed in Iraq (not that I'd get lucky enough to have a friend in Afganistan willing to send some Kush seed, not for smoking, I don't do that anymore, just wish they would make it legal so I could do some crosses).
I grew it last year and while it didn't thrive in Indiana it gave foundation seed. This year it didn't make it into the ground, but next year it will be increased for distribution. I bulked the seeds together and didn't isolate "varities" as in the fertile crescent whet is almost always grown as a landrace or admixture of types, the diversity was astonishing, even in a small patch. Those were spring sown/summer varieties.
This fall (well, preparing to plant this week) I'll be putting the winter Iraq landrace in the ground. Same story, it will once again be increased and offered to the public. Summer = Enlil, Winter= Innana
While wheat doesn't necesarily interest me the way corn does, because of my inability to harvest and process enough of it for any meaningful use, in time I hope to coerce myself into studying it a bit more and learning to use/process it in more efficient manners. Eventually I would like to repatriate some of this seed to farmers in Iraq.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 30, 2011 16:12:07 GMT -5
It finally dried out enough in my dampest field that I could venture through without sinking into the mud. The winter wheat is looking great. It was planted in mid September a week after our first fall frost. Last fall when the snow arrived there were about two leaves around 2.5 inches long. Here is what one wheat berry turned into during the winter: I planted another larger patch of the same wheat about two weeks ago in a field closer to home. (Part of my sustainability challenge to grow and sell a bag of wheat at the farmers market this summer.)
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Post by steev on Mar 30, 2011 22:16:57 GMT -5
I hope to get 8 or 10 varieties of wheat and barley planted this week-end; so much I want to do, so little time; I may have to triage, but right now the soil is perfect, plenty moist but not muck.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Mar 31, 2011 4:29:32 GMT -5
There is a very interesting article in National Geographic about perennial versus annual wheats. Spoke mainly about the root systems and compared the two. Rather amazing. It really pointed up the importance of following up Tim Peters work and helping to add as much data as possible as quickly as possible.
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Post by cortona on Mar 31, 2011 13:03:27 GMT -5
this year i think i wil plant the perennial weat from tim peters in order to so some selection, if it survive my drougt summer and resprouts...its a winner and i wil continue to sow and replant it in larger ammount and also share seeds, i've gived away the perennial rice seeds to a friends that wil tryal it !
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 28, 2011 0:19:32 GMT -5
Here is what my winter wheat planting looked like today. The weedy patch to the right is where I planted corn seed last fall. I'm leaving it alone for another month or six weeks just in case any of the corn seed/plants survived the winter. [That's all the bigger the weeds have managed to grow so far this spring.]
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Post by steev on Apr 28, 2011 13:27:50 GMT -5
I envy the apparent delicacy of your weeds. I think what I have is Weedus trexicus.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 8, 2011 23:05:42 GMT -5
Here is what the feral winter wheat looked like two days ago. Each clump grew from one seed. How's that for tillering?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 9, 2011 8:19:37 GMT -5
Wow. I would have gone nuts if it was my first foray into growing a grass. The first year we had corn I thought I was supposed to pull all the tillers out. After diligently pulling them on a daily basis for about a week, the neighbor asked me what I was doing. I told him and he nearly died of amazement. Some of their advice is pretty good!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 10, 2011 10:15:23 GMT -5
I counted seeds yesterday: 66 tillers times 48 seeds per tiller = more than a 3000 times increase in seed.
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Post by steev on Jun 10, 2011 19:42:58 GMT -5
Don't count your chickenfeed before it's scratch.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 10, 2011 22:35:13 GMT -5
He's a counter by nature. Wait till you hear what he does with the corn seed! You haven't been here long enough to "hear" the cornmen breakdown their crops. It's flat out amazing.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 10, 2011 23:42:42 GMT -5
Yup. Like I could expect 100 to 200 of the seeds from that one plant to be cross pollinated by another plant... But do I really want to devote 1/4 acre next year to grow out all the offspring of one seed? I don't think so. So far I'm pretty content with my landrace as it currently exists. I expect I'll do with it the same as what I do with my other land-races: "Joseph's Best Winter Wheat" for the most fruitful plants in my garden, and "Joseph's Most Diverse Winter Wheat" for anything that manages to grow well enough to reproduce.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jun 11, 2011 6:14:00 GMT -5
Say, do you know if that wheat can be classified as hard or soft? What are you going to do with it after harvest?
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