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Post by steev on Jun 16, 2014 21:16:26 GMT -5
The Tibetan Purple barley, Ethiopian Purple wheat, and Bolero wheat I put in this Spring (I had hoped for Fall) when the rain finally came, are all ripening; the good news is: I'll not have to irrigate them; the bad news is: I've not irrigated them for months, so no help for other plants, there.
They have all done well enough that I feel I can both eat some and have a real patch of each, preferably planted next Fall, when the rains come, Inshallah! I'm pleased that they have done so well, Spring-planted, though it's not ideal, irrigation- and planting-space-wise.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 16, 2014 22:40:20 GMT -5
Results of my own grain plantings
Pot #4 (Kusa GLOBE WHEAT STRAIN 1506). Of all the wheats planted this year, this seems the heathiest (or, more accurately, the most aesthetically pleasing, which, given that my small amount of space means pretty much all the grain winds up in a vase, not a mill, is the more important factor to me.) On the other hand, it also was the last to make heads (though, as it was sown almost a month after all the others and needed some recovery time on top of that from my mistake of sowing it indoors (which meant it left the house in a seriosly elongated and etieolated condtion probably does not make that fact significant (actually it says a great deal to the toughness of this strain that it could not only recover from such treatment as a plant, but catch up to less abused wheats so readily. The spherical kernels actually do change the shape of the head quite a bit (at least the shape near the rachis); which had never occurred to me (logically, I should have known they would, but it is still surprising). I'm also suprised that, other than that, the heads look much like that of a conventional wheat, in terms of the shape of the head. Since T. spharoccocum (shot/globe wheat) is supposed to be most closeyl related evolutionaliy to T. compactum (club wheat). I had sort of assumed it would also have short, compacted heads (most of my books said it would). Very strong looking stems; it's probably VERY lodge resistant.
Pot #3 (the wheat I bought at the Indian grocery store as part of the Navdhanya mixed bags). Of all of the wheats, this one has done the WORST, by far. While I expected some decreased yeild due to how badly I overplanted that pot, the results indicate the stuff may be crappy wheat to begin with. Everything except the actual heads (bearded) is more or less dead. And while there are literally dozen of those heads I doubt the biggest of them has more than 4 spikelets (incuding aborted ones on the baese). Most have only one. What heads there are are incredibly aphid chewed (okay....sucked). At year's end I thing I'm just going to pull up the whole pot and thresh what little I can out of them (looking as they do, there is nothing for a vase there) for sowing again the summer after the next one (Nexy summer I'm planning to do the Chusa Barley, and that's going to require use of all seven pots I can muster). Maybe sown thinner, they will develop better heads than they did this time; but I'm not counting on it.
Pot#2 (All wheat I found over this year in my seed hunts EXCEPT for the stuff in the pot above). A little better looking that pot #3 headwise, but still a little manky. There seems to be two main types in there, both bearded. Tghe more common is a medium thickness head; pretty standard looking stuff for a "classic" hard wheat (that is, one without the more spiral head shape and awn placement common in most modern bread wheats) But there are a few that are a little different (oddly, they are all clustered on one side of the pot, though it is obvios they are NOT all attached to the same plant). It's also a "boxy" wheat head, but a bid wider, and a little shorter. It also probably has a white cast to the glumes the other doesn't.
Pot#1 (all other small grains pulled out over the year). The most diverse of all which is not surpising as the only polyspecific pot. There are now about 8-10 different barley plants (all sticky, or whatever you call the opposite of naked) with heads there, and I don't think two of them are similar enough not to be distinct from each other. Two are six row and these came first; both are probably only 4-5 weeks from full ripeness. One of these I may actually keep for permant ornamental growth, as I think the head is particualrly well formed in shape; and am quite taken with how short (4 layer versus the 6 of the other) and fat it is (I've always had a real soft spot for strubby grain heads). The rest are all two row, and vary from a flattish one similar to the two that showed up in the planting two years ago (though with a shorter beard and, I hope, a stronger stalk) to one that is almost a narrow cylinder (it's still two row, but curvier) There is also one small oat head with two "bells" and that weird grass I took the photo of back in the seed hunt thread.
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Post by steev on Jun 22, 2014 22:23:27 GMT -5
Harvested my grains this week-end; threshed much of it; the Bolero wheat is clearly the most productive and very easy to thresh. The crop of it is ~7lbs, third planting, starting with ~2oz; hope to plant a large patch in November to grow un-irrigated. Put some to soak for cooking tomorrow.
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Post by steev on Jun 23, 2014 22:39:01 GMT -5
Put the soaked Bolero to boil ~15 minutes, took it off to cool; ~2PM salted it and put it on to boil, went to do other stuff, remembered it ~3PM; luckily my landlady had smelled "burnt toast" and had shut it off; most of it was good "French roast wheat", so I eventually added Persian cucumbers, tomatoes, Anaheim chile, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and cilantro; not bad at all, as a cold salad.
All the recipes seem to want ~an hour cooking, but overnight soaking, boiling, and resting seems to work well. I think this is a valuable addition to my diet, given that once it's cooked, I can use the wheatberries in many ways. As a reasonably produced/processed/stored crop, I'm pleased with this as a carb/calorie store, certain to be a staple for me.
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Post by raymondo on Jun 24, 2014 1:45:45 GMT -5
It's good when a grain is easy to grow, thresh and cook. The barley varieties I have are like that.
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Post by steev on Jun 24, 2014 19:24:27 GMT -5
I really hope for an early, copious rainy season this October, having ~12 grains I need to grow/increase. There's a NorCal rice company that grows/markets a range of fancy rices, including a mix, very multi-colored and pretty on the plate. I could do that with wheat and/or barley; think it'd be good. Got some hull-less oats that haven't had a fair chance to run, too.
I'm very stoked on the ease-of-preparation/use of grainberries. Just needs a decent set of teeth, not a mill, or lacking those decent teeth, a cheap masa-mill or metate/petate, to get your carbs year-round, from easy storage.
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Post by steev on Jun 30, 2014 21:15:15 GMT -5
Cooked and saladed some Ethiopian Purple wheat, today; ran both straight-cooked and tarted-up-salad by the chef and his 18-month-old, to rave reviews; she doesn't talk much, but has a good grasp of "more"; I feel so validated, her opinion being utterly guileless. It's a larger berry than Bolero, and darker, very important if one wants to appeal to foodies, as appearance is very important to appeal.
My housemates also liked it; I look forward to trying the Tibetan Purple barley, next week (I only cook on Mondays, except for just myself, and they cook Wednesdays and Sundays; it's sort of a 60's communal housing thing).
I so hope the rain comes heavy late October, as I have so many/much grains to plant in Fall, for early harvest of higher yields. Well, it will be what it will be, and I will deal with it as best I can, as farmers always have done.
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Post by steev on Jul 6, 2014 22:10:14 GMT -5
Harvested/threshed the last of the Bolero wheat; transplanted the few sprouted/surviving Black Emmer wheat plants. I'd planted them when things were getting too dry, on the inactive drip-line the other grains were on, so they languished. I plugged them into a blank stretch on an active drip-line, so one hopes they'll yield some seed-increase.
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Post by steev on Jul 14, 2014 21:08:28 GMT -5
I think the Black Emmer is toast, not in a good way.
Got around to cooking up some Tibetan Purple barley; gets larger than those two wheats and tends to split; I think that makes it more tender and doubtless more absorptive of other flavors; ran it by the chef, who says it's his favorite of the three. The excess cooking water was very dark and aromatic, so I saved it, pending thinking up how to use it; maybe with tea and yak butter; anybody got a yak?
I'm very stoked about grains this way; they're so easy to cook up a big batch, throw into the freezer, and have as hot/cold cereal for brekkie, a nice cold salad at lunch, or added to soup, stew, or stuffing for supper. Mmm, I'm imagining stuffed chicken, pigeon, even gopher.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 15, 2014 12:41:33 GMT -5
My updates
Everything is in except the shot/globe wheat which seems to have gone into a sort of stasis (no longer actively growing, but not dying down either) all the leaves are dead but the actual stalks still have some green on them (as do some of the glumes on the heads) and I am loath to cut the stuff 'til I am sure it all is ready. At this point I'm wondering if I a facing a Hobson's choice; cut the heads now and risk all of the seeds being too immature to be viable or wait for a die down that may not actually come until the onset of wintry weather in a few months, and risk either 1. the heavy rain causing the parts that ARE dead to mold and ruin the grain or 2. having the aphids do so much damage the plants rot where they stand. It turns out the shot wheat is no more resistant to them than any of the others; the later growth just meant a later time for them to swarm all over and mess everything up. I baffles me how the feral wheat I see which has no one watching it in its growth, comes out with beautiful heads, why the stuff I plant and coddle ends up looks like crap. The difference in pest resistance between older and modern wheat can't be THAT great. Next year, everything gets weekly aphid sprayings, or I actively start moving any larval ladybugs I find on our property over to the grain (they showed up eventually on their own, but by then most of the damage had been done) The other wheat harvest was as disappointing as I though they would be, if not more so. I only got maybe 40 grains from pot #2 (not counting any that are in the 4-5 heads that actually came out OK looking enough to go to vase. As bad as that was it was a bounty compared to pot #3. Out off all those dozens of heads, I pulled a grand total of 9 grains (and I doubt those two heads that made it to vase would have added more than one or two more to that count) Empty head after empty head. If I re-plant them AT all, I think I'll just mix it into the random poll, that few number of grains isn't WORTH a pot of it's own, and maybe a little crossing will yield something better.
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Post by ferdzy on Jul 15, 2014 16:12:03 GMT -5
Blueadzuki, I notice you are growing your grains in pots. It seems to me that grains are basically forms of grass, and grass is well-known for its deep roots. It may be that any grain grown in a pot is going to be at a disadvantage when it comes to fending off the pests. Unfortunately, I don't have any advice for you; I know you struggle to find any space to grow.
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Post by bunkie on Jul 15, 2014 17:28:34 GMT -5
Ferdzy, I grew several varieties of grains (oats, barley and wheat, mainly) in shallow flat planters a couple of years ago in the greenhouse. They never were transplanted into the gardens as intended, but grew to about a foot and a half tall and produced a lot of seed. I don't think the pots would hurt production from my experience using really shallow trays with no problem.
Blue, I had the same experience with my Mountaineer Perennial Rye. The first year I planted it in flats in April and transplanted out in the field in May. I had beautiful full heads with not one seed in them! On the 'perennial grains' thread here, I wrote about it. Tim Peters responded and mentioned that the seed was supposeed to be planted in July or August, not April/May, and that that could've caused the problem. These plants are still in the ground going on 6 years now, and have produced seed from the second year forth.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 15, 2014 18:03:05 GMT -5
I think another problem may be that, with the pots on the pedestals, any grain that require the wind to bring pollen from another plant to get it going is going to have a problem, as no matter which way the wind blows pretty much all the pollen is going to miss the other pots and win up in the lawn or the driveway. But as you say there is little choice, anywhere else, and the birds and beasts mow the grain down as it comes up; same as the corn.
Actually the year after next I am toying with seeing if I can start the grains in the pots and then, when it has grown enough to exhaust its stored food (and therefore be less attractive to the critters, to transplant the whole contents of the pots into the ground as huge plugs (I'm not dumb enough to try and tease them apart at that size, I know I'd basically just end up killing most, if not all, of them) and cover them with cages. I say "the year after next because next year I have the Chusa Gandruk barley from Kusa slated to be my majority test grain, and based on the way the describe it, It sounds like some to most of those will grow too tall for any cage I could cobble together (though giving I have some concerns about lodging with those some sort of collars might be a good idea.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 16, 2014 18:27:21 GMT -5
Shot wheat finally finished. Will check later to see if any heads are still in good enough shape to keep intact, and how much grain I actually got.
One interesting about the 1506 apparent the head changes shape when it finishes. Normally the short beard on the head stays rigidly upright and close to the glumes (so close in fact, that you have to get up close to realize it HAS a beard. But apparently, when it is done, the awns start to bend outward making the beard more prominent Either that or they absorbed more water last during last nights rain than I thought and are just soaked through (in which case I better put the grain to dry for a little extra time before I put it away.
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Post by steev on Jul 16, 2014 19:32:03 GMT -5
Interesting; hadn't thought about it, but I think the Bolero awns did that strongly, and I suspect it's due to action of the hulls, as I think the horrid hulls of that unknown wheat would have made awns do that (had they any), the hulls becoming very "beaky".
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