A perennial cereal ... any pointers?

[raymondo]

There's a local perennial grass species, Microlaena stipoides, whose seeds are a nutritious rice-like grain with 22% protein and no gluten. It's usefulness in agriculture is hampered by the fact that seeds ripen over a period and when ripe, the seed head shatters. Now this is a good strategy in its natural environment but shattering is not useful in a farmer's field.
It may be way beyond my abilities but I'd very much like to try growing a small plot of it to see if I can find some non-shattering plants and maybe even develop a non-shattering strain. The problem is, I know nothing about grain breeding and selection. Would any of you knowledgeable folk out there have any suggestions of sources of information - books or internet?

[orflo]

Raymondo,
not a lot can be found, I've been searching for that as well. But I do have some experience growing wheat and spelt, and selecting on it. In fact, it's quite straightforward: in your case a selection on non-scattering plants seems to be the first necessity, if you could ever achieve this, you can begin selecting on other caracteristics: bigger crops, taste, even colour or other things...
So, how to start: try and make a first selection on plants retaining their seeds longer than other plants, sow these out and again, make a new selection using this criteria, and so on. It could take years before you see a good result, or maybe this microlaena isn't adaptable at all (I hope, for your sake, it is), or, just maybe (but chances are small), you get good results within a short period, two or three years. It really isn't difficult but a great deal of patience is required, differences between plants who retain their seeds longer and plants who are easy to shatter can be very small, maybe even only a few days. Select on this , if you could gain a few days every year , this could be a beginning of...
Frank

[raymondo]

Thanks Frank. It seems like keen observation, on a regular basis, is what's required.

[jason]

Peters' seed offers Secale montanum which it calls Perennial Rye. Maybe something else to look into..

www.psrseed.com/perennialgrains.html

[Alan]

That's where I was getting ready to point the attention, at Tim Peters who has done much work in perrinial grains.

Definetly work with it Raymondo, it could lead to important, permiculture, and nutrition developments and I would love to be kept in the loop about your work friend!

[winter unfazed]

I have read that there is a triticum cross, grown in Russia, which is basically perennial wheat. It is obtained by cross-breeding wheat with perennial couch grass, mowing the first year so only perennial specimens survive, and sifting the seed to select for larger grains.