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Post by reed on Jan 17, 2016 7:51:19 GMT -5
I looked up the Avena fatua that blueadzuki mentioned and it looks very familiar, we have a lot of it around here. When I do a google image search for "grain awns" a lot of the pictures that come up also look very familiar. In a search for "barley awns" or "rye awns" the pictures are even more familiar. I'm convinced now that some of the weeds I'v grown up around and never gave much thought are rye, barley, oats and maybe even wheat. Now I just need to grow some and to compare to the wild stuff to figure it all out for sure.
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Post by Walk on Jan 17, 2016 9:31:49 GMT -5
We've grown some small grains over the years but found that in our small patches, any bird or critter damage was such a high percentage of the total crop that it wasn't worth the time and effort, not to mention the threshing, etc. We've had much success with corn, amaranth, and sorghum. Much easier to grow, harvest, and process. We also do seed poppies and some flax and camelina. If we had a larger field and some mechanization of some sort we would consider planting oats and millet but our 1/4 acre garden is worked by hand by a couple of 60 somethings. I like some of the ideas that Will Bonsall talks about regarding small grains in his new book "Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical Self Reliant Gardening." Lots of good ideas.
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Post by sevenmile on Jan 18, 2016 1:10:57 GMT -5
I grow small patches of variuos grains, mostly for fun because as others have stated, the "labor to yield " ratio is not great when doing things by hand. (that is why we have those "evil "large monoculture fields and farm machinery --side note-- running a John Deere combine through a field of 120 bushel wheat is a very satisfying experience I have done multiple seed increases starting with as few as 25 seeds and have not had head fill issues. Nor have I had issues with shattering, even with hulless Barley. I keep thinking that In my spare time I will find a cheap way to semi mechanise the process so I can grow hulless barley for the pigs -- good nutrient profile there., much better than regular hulled Barley with it's high fiber level. There are numerous YouTube videos on modifying small wood chippers, and even a mower or two. In the mean while, I hand thresh while watching football.... Reed I don't know anything about doing a PM, but send me one, I have a few things I could share a bit of. Sustainable Seed co. Is where most of my original stock came from.
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Post by waynem on Jan 18, 2016 4:35:14 GMT -5
I have a hulless oat I grow as a nurse crop when seeding alfalfa in the spring. When i grew it for seed the yield was about an ounce per square foot after some predator loss. It was harvested with a combine and cleaned at a warehouse, but I had to hand pick the foreign material out before eating it. The seed is not as large as some other oats I have grown. I have cooked it whole and also rolled it in an oat flaker before cooking it. I have plenty available. PM me if you are interested.
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Post by philagardener on Jan 18, 2016 7:27:04 GMT -5
Welcome, waynem ! Sounds like you are working at a fairly large scale. Drop on by our welcome thread and tell us a little more about your operation.
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Post by reed on Jan 18, 2016 8:20:38 GMT -5
Thanks, sevenmile and waynem, PMs sent. I'm growing on a very small scale also. Gonna convert two 10' x 10' areas of my corn patch for the grains. Mostly just want to see them growing in real life. If I get a little to actually eat some I'll be very happy. We got lots of chipmunks and small birds of all kind so don't expect it to be easy.
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Post by reed on Jan 18, 2016 10:32:27 GMT -5
If my irrigation system ever failed, or if I moved further out into the desert to a place without irrigation, I would not be able to grow corn. My grain crops would then be wheat or rye, regardless of the labor involved. I've wondered and worried some about the folks in drier areas steev , flowerweaver , rowan , what might you do if irrigation wasn't available. Here in the Ohio Valley we don't have anything like what you folks deal with but it's not like it used to be. I decided not to water anything during our more and more common July, August dry spells. I think they might get even more common and more dry so I want to select for things that can take it even if yield is reduced. Other than flying over places like Kansas I had never see those big round irrigation contraptions but in recent years they have popped up all around Indiana. I suppose the ones near the river may be pumping from it, the ones farther north must be on wells. Do you all run any little breeding experiments on the side, testing for things that could grow without irrigation? Or is it just too dry to even try it?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 18, 2016 11:17:50 GMT -5
Do you all run any little breeding experiments on the side, testing for things that could grow without irrigation? Or is it just too dry to even try it? Once in a while something volunteers in the badlands. I harvested a few dryland zucchini one year, and a dryland cherry tomato produced a few fruits one year. If I were honestly trying to grow in the badlands, I'd make small micro-catchments around the plants, and do things like collect runoff from 100 square feet for one tomato plant. (Or however much bigger the catchment needed to be). And my irrigation system sometimes misses areas of the garden. Sometimes something ekes out an existence in one of the dry zones. When I was a child, there was a clump of Egyptian onions that had survived in my great-grandfather's non-irrigated yard for some decades. When my daddy was a child, he dragged some apricots out into the badlands to have a food fight with his friends. One of the trees is still growing. I'm working on a breeding project for a winter-hardy shelling pea. I expect to have enough seed at the end of this growing season to start planting it out in the desert. The idea is that is has to be winter hardy so that it can grow from September to May when moisture is available, and then it has to mature fruit very early after the rains stop. There are several strains of the project, so in addition to a shelling pea, I might end up with an Australian winter pea with much shorter days to maturity. There may be other crops that could take advantage of this sort of overwintering strategy. They don't need to be drought tolerant, they can be drought avoidant. I can grow winter rye any time I want in the badlands, because I collected a feral population from the badlands. There is a wild mustard that grows gloriously around here in the fall. It tastes very bitter, so has to be cooked in 4 changes of water to be palatable. It would be a good candidate for a breeding project. There is a wild parsley that has big roots that grows in the driest parts of the desert. It would be a good candidate for a dryland crop. So there is the possibility to grow at least some types of food around here without irrigation. But for the most part, I don't try to adapt crops to drought tolerance. It might be fun to adopt the policy that when I go to the badlands I should take seeds with me for planting... Just to see what happens. Animal predation is a big problem for unattended plantings.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 18, 2016 11:23:24 GMT -5
waynem: Good to see you on the forum. I sure enjoyed my visit with you a year ago. Thanks.
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Post by rowan on Jan 18, 2016 16:18:29 GMT -5
I've wondered and worried some about the folks in drier areas steev , flowerweaver , rowan , what might you do if irrigation wasn't available. Here in the Ohio Valley we don't have anything like what you folks deal with but it's not like it used to be. I decided not to water anything during our more and more common July, August dry spells. I think they might get even more common and more dry so I want to select for things that can take it even if yield is reduced. If I didn't have irrigation I doubt I could grow anything for half of the year and just concentrate on winter and spring growing stuff like garlic, broad beans and some brassicas. I have tried experimenting with crops that cope with dry conditions but many still won't grow here with no water whatsoever. I have had some success with a few watermelons over the summer though.
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dave
gopher
Posts: 18
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Post by dave on Jan 18, 2016 21:11:30 GMT -5
("Do you all run any little breeding experiments on the side, testing for things that could grow without irrigation? Or is it just too dry to even try it?")
The Willamette Valley of Oregon is actually one of the driest places in the US during August. I started last summer with some haphazard experiments on that. I had enough success that I have expanded the experiment for this summer. The results from last year were reduced yields, and some plants do not seem like a good choice for dry gardening. I'll see what the results are from this summer. I'll plant just as I do for my regular garden, but increase the plant spacing. There is no water, other than natural rain, added till after harvest. I've got some tomatoes, potatoes, summer and winter squash, and peppers planned for it.
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Post by steev on Jan 18, 2016 21:23:31 GMT -5
Last year, I planted large patches of the three grains of which I had the most seed, looking to at last have enough grain to harvest with my scythe; utter crop failure; back to hand-picking; feh.
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Post by flowerweaver on Jan 19, 2016 12:28:33 GMT -5
reed during the worst drought years I looked at farms for sale in the North Carolina temperate rainforest, LOL! I could not grow here without irrigation, but I try to supply the least amount necessary, even as starts. I usually kill off about 30% of those from irregular watering! Where I live gardening has become more of an extreme sport. After two years of hard drought surrounded by wildfires, a year of tornado, hail, flood, and then a year of over 70 inches of excessive rain I truly don't know what to expect anymore. I'm still debating whether I'm going to plant on hill or trough this spring. But I keep on keeping on--planting and saving seed from whatever survives, so hopefully my landraces are becoming indestructible!
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Post by steev on Jan 19, 2016 21:03:18 GMT -5
Oh! That's the same polish I use.
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Post by flowerweaver on Jan 20, 2016 20:22:11 GMT -5
I thought so steev...it does a good job of hiding the garden dirt under one's toenails doesn't it?
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