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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 5, 2015 1:25:20 GMT -5
This thread is directed at anyone in this forum who has tried the Chusi Gandruk barley mixture sold by the Kusa Seed society. I am planning to plant this fairly soon, and there are one or two questions I am hoping someone out there who planted this some previous year may be able to answer.
First and foremost, is there any actual difference between the seven packets they send you. Based on the way they are described, it doesn't sound like there is any sort of correspondence between packet and type. It looks like they must keep the populations discrete, since there actually are numbered packets (as opposed to simply sending seven identical packets) and the fact that separate germination tests are used on each one (when I got mine the packets of #1 and #7 had had their seed count tripled because they hadn't germinated well enough to meet the standards). I really need to know this in order to figure out how many pots I actually need. If there ARE differences in the mix from one to another, I'd prefer to keep them separate, so that, if I get something I particularly like, I know which population it came from. However if there really isn't any difference, if what you get is seven samples out of the same mass landrace population, I'd prefer to know I can blend the packets, so as to maximize density (50 grains is actually kind of low for a pedestal pot) and more importantly, minimize the number of pedestals I have to use (thereby freeing others for other plants that need the protection)
Secondly is is actually true that this stuff will get 9-15 feet tall? As I said I am planting the barley in a pot on one of the pedestals. I have to; they're the only place semi protected from the birds and beasts (every time I sow grain in a pot anywhere else, or in the ground, I can pretty much can guarantee the birds and other animals basically devouring every last one LONG before anyone reaches maturity. This has worked well for me previously, but all of those grains were of far more modest heights. If this stuff really is that tall, I'm worried that, given how much wind that part of the property gets, all of the barley will simply lodge the moment the first good windstorm comes along (I'm assuming that, even if the heads may be longer the same way the stalks are, this barley's stems are not significantly thicker than any other.
So, if anyone knows anything, telling me would be great help.
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Post by khumlee on Apr 5, 2015 13:02:33 GMT -5
Hi Blueadzuki, I don't know if I have understand well your interrogations, but if you have got a doubt on the quality of the seed, sow all the paquet in a pot and if lot of plants grow, tou can transplant them into a another pot. 9 to 14 feet tall it's the height of african sorghum ! My best barley is to 3,5 feet BUt Kusa Seed don't want to share their jewelery out of USA, despite many requests! So I wish you good luck with your barley and shares with us some photos so we can see these giant
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 5, 2015 14:25:13 GMT -5
I don't have a doubt about the quality or quantity just if there is a difference in types between the seven packets (they're just marked 1 of 7, 2 of 7 etc.)
THEY said it was 9-15 feet, not me. I'd go back and confirm this, but apparently there is something on the Kusa site that my ani-virus does not like, and it has blocked it (and I don't want to override the block, on the off chance they are right).
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Post by 12540dumont on Apr 6, 2015 12:50:36 GMT -5
I couldn't find this barley on their site? Is this from a previous year offer? They do have a p.o. box
The Kusa Seed Research Foundation Post Office Box 761 Ojai, California 93024 USA
You could snail mail them. They are pretty good at answering letters.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 6, 2015 15:44:55 GMT -5
I could, except I'm literally ready to plant NOW. By the time the letter gets back to me, it will be too late in the season for barley
I had no trouble finding it on the site, it's the second offering.
Oh and I may have gotten the height wrong. I was thinking of the heads which they say often have beards that are seven inches long. They said nothing of the size of the plants.
I suppose I'll just have to go blind into this.
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Post by DarJones on Apr 6, 2015 21:23:22 GMT -5
If the blind lead the blind, both will fall in a ditch. Aphorisms are so aphoric.
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Post by steev on Apr 6, 2015 22:12:25 GMT -5
Ditches aren't omnipresent. On the frontiers of knowledge, all are blind, but for their best extrapolating guesses based on what they think they know. We must boldly go where we have not gone before, if we are to have any hope of becoming more knowledgeable and relatively less blind.
The question is: is the more-experienced blind capable of leading the less-experienced to a frontier which the less-experienced, being less resigned to "how things are and ever shall be", is capable of crossing? "Why?" and "Why not?" are extremely valuable questions, although not infrequently scary to the comfortable, resigned-to-their-fate blind.
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Post by khumlee on Apr 7, 2015 3:01:11 GMT -5
from Kusa Seed Society
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 8, 2015 15:37:15 GMT -5
Managed to get through to them (via using my old computer, whose MacAfee expired years ago, and so can't get up in arms) and got an answer back. They say it might as well treat all of the packets as if they are one then select out what I like from the results.
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Post by steev on Apr 8, 2015 20:01:39 GMT -5
That doesn't sound too promising when you're only planting a few seeds in pots. On the other hand, I planted big patches of three grains, anticipating great harvests; NAH! They didn't sprout as soon as I'd expected and seem to have been overwhelmed by mustard and shepherd's purse. The various small plantings of other grains are also showing little, if any, vigor. I'm weeding out the brome as soon as it is identifiable, but it's questionable how many of the grass-clumps are the grains I planted.
Ironically, there is a barley seed that was lost by the pump-house, which sprouted and is heading up, healthy as a hog.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 9, 2015 6:06:38 GMT -5
Well I'd hardly call it "a few seeds". 7x50 seeds per packet = 350 grains, plus 200 more in the "extra grains" they added to two of the packets (since those were added because those samples had poor germination, I don't know whether adding them to the count is valid or not.) Not enough to cover an acre, but a perfectly respectable number, if I planted them out one by one at optimum distance (which, if I didn't have my critter problem, would probably be how I would do it) to fill up my 10x10 zone four or five times over.
Plus the population may end up getting a bolster. Now that I know I can do one or two pots instead of seven, that frees up pedestal space for other grains. One, as usual, will go to the "found grains", I need to keep one space free until high summer (for the edible Job's tears) and I'll probably do an extra bean pot or two now that I can, but there are other spaces left, and I do have that Horedum zeocriton seed lying around. Wonder if the two species can cross (probably can).
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Post by reed on Apr 9, 2015 8:28:05 GMT -5
I'm pretty much totally ignorant about grains other than the fact I really like barley in soup. Looking up the things you are talking about I found pictures that look an awful lot like some of the wild grass seed heads that grow around here. Now my brain is wandering and I will be paying a lot more attention when I come across them this year.
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 9, 2015 9:10:14 GMT -5
I wish you luck, but bear in mind that there are a few turf grasses that look a lot like a rough barley or rye, but aren't.
Also a lot of feral barley is probably fodder barley (for animals) or brewing barley (for making into malt, for beer and whiskey) i.e. non naked which means the glumes stay stuck to the grain. There's ARE ways of getting them off (that's why the barley in the stores is often referred to as "peeled") but they tend to need equipment that a small home grower probably doesn't have (basically, you need the same sort of equipment as you would for removing the bran off of wheat, or for polishing rice. unpeeled non naked barley is still edible, but it will be rather coarse (if you are planning to use it for bread) and may have trouble cooking soft (if you are using it as pearl barley in soup)
If you are VERY far south (so you have a nice long warm period), you might want to look into edible jobs tears too (technically, all Job's tears are edible, but I mean the kind grown for food, with the softer, easier to remove shells) that's used more or less the same as pearl barley (or why it's called "Japanese/Chinese pearl barley) the main catch is that finding seed for the food type that is grow able is really hard. I only have a pinch or so after a year combing Chinatown (JT is sold pre-peeled and polished, so I basically am looking for the seeds the machine missed, and the machines don't miss much anymore) and the only other source I know is one guy on SSE (who seems to only be able to give out tiny amounts, so no direct field level supplies.)
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Post by blueadzuki on Apr 16, 2015 18:05:58 GMT -5
First few shoots up.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 28, 2015 15:45:59 GMT -5
It's almost harvest time, so I am probably in a position now to give a report on results
In terms of actual fertility results were are pretty good. The critters took their usual heavy cut, both in terms of seed eaten and seedlings destroyed (the pots may be harder for the critters to get to, but they are hardly immune to them. Nowhere outside is.) but I still wound up with a pot filled from side to side. And once they reached their size they certainly produced a perfectly acceptable amount of actual grain (factoring in for the fact that small grain plants constrained by a pot tend to be much smaller, and only make one or two heads, not the dozens they often make with infinite space)
The plants and heads are certainly large enough both in terms of "solid" and "total" length (without and with the beard). Though I'm not sure about this whole 7 inch beard thing, the beards don't look all that much longer than they have on any other barley I've grown. Then again, I don't think I've ever actually gotten out a ruler and measured the length of the beard on any head, maybe it's just 7 inches is normal anyway.
If there are indeed "several dozen" morphologically distinct types in the mix, then most of them didn't make it into any of my packets (or, at least, didn't make it to producing any grain) In all I count 4 distinct types. I probably reduced the diversity a little when I made my reserve selection (needing some arbitrary factor to determine which seeds would get saved as a reserve should the first crop not take, I put to the side all of the purplest seeds) But I have difficulty believing that removing maybe 50 seeds out of a population of 250-350 could take that much of the diversity, so some other factor is probably in play (maybe the animals were selective in which grains they ate)
Far and away the commonest phenotype in the population is a green/gold six row with a short squat head with a sort of "bread wheat" appearance to the glumes (glumes splayed of in all directions giving an irregular outline, as opposed to the tight, boxy look found in durum and such), similar in appearance to a lot of other six row barleys I've seen (particularly those that have descended from seed I found mixed into Indian material, some of which very well may share some common germplasm with Tibetan populations.)
Type II is very similar to types 1 but has some purplish anthocyanin streaking on the glumes, mostly on the inner side (the side facing the center of the head). This varies from a tiny trace to a fairly significant stripe (some of the darker ones almost have the "red/purple inside with a golden halo" look some kinds of sorghum get.)
Type III is kind of hard to describe. The best I can do is "golden pseudo-two row" or "golden two row, sort of". That is, it's a two row, but it looks like something you would get if you stopped a barley that was evolving from a six to a two somewhere in between. On most two row barleys I've seen, the undeveloped side glumes are more or less invisible on the mature head. On these, they're still there, reduced, but still fully visible, making a sort of feathery or scaley pattern up the sides of the head. With a little tinkering this could actually make a very nice floral/ornamental grain (actually it's a pretty nice one now, but I think it could be better.) on it as it stands only the fertile grain has awns so the head has the standard flat shape of two row heads. If you could turn the awns back on on the sides you might get a very visually striking effect, with the side awns more or less plastered along the sides of the head making a much bigger feather/chevron pattern (and perhaps a textured effect at the edges, if you can make the awns long enough to extend past the edges of the rest of the head).
Finally one head is what I will call type IV. This is more or less like type I but there is something wrong with the awns. After going up a short distance (basically until the point where they would start getting thin and hairlike) they club off, making a sort of inverted "V" of tissue. I think I may rogue this one out of future plantings. It isn't really all that aesthetically pleasing, especially since one awn at the top of the head isn't clubbed off, making the whole head look sloppy and damaged (it's sort of like that wheat I grew a few years ago that was basically beardless, except for having one "whisker" sticking out of one side of the top of each head. And since pretty much all the grain I grow winds up in vases on the mantel, I need the heads to be as pretty as possible.
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