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Post by blackox on Jan 30, 2014 16:42:10 GMT -5
I just got done drinking this bottle of fermented tea with chia seeds in it and it was darn good!
I know that I can grow those Chi-Chia pets up here, but could I get chia to go to seed up here (Ohio, USA) or is chia reserved for warmer climates? Have any of you HG-ers grown it before?
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Post by flowerweaver on Jan 30, 2014 20:30:43 GMT -5
Chias are considered annuals and are native to the Southwest. I have a friend in Australia that successfully grows chia. There are at least three kinds: Salvia hispanica (the most common), Salvia columbariae (less common), and Salvia tiliaefolia (almost unknown) grown by the Tarahumara in the Sierra Madres. It's possible the latter being able to grow in the mountains might be more acclimatized to cold? Here's an interesting link I found: www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1990/v1-252.html |
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Post by blackox on Jan 31, 2014 18:32:54 GMT -5
Great! Thanks for the link, Salvia Tiliaefolia is exactly what Native Seed Search has! I suppose being from further up north that it would have less sensitivity to day-length. I guess that all that's left to do is give them a shot, maybe start them indoors to give them a head-start.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 13, 2018 20:58:39 GMT -5
I want to have more Omega-3 oils in my diet. So I have been exploring growing flax and chia. I have grown Salvia hispanica for the past few years. It seems to be day-length sensitive, so doesn't set seeds in my garden, though it grows into a huge plant. I hear that there are patented varieties of day-neutral chia that might be making their way into grocery stores. So it would be worthwhile to start screening them for ability to set seed in northern climates. A patent only lasts 20 years. I grew Salvia columbiana, last year. It produced seeds. It was a small plant that would be easily lost in the weeds. I intend to grow it a few more years to see if it can become more adapted to my garden. I grew Clary Sage, Salvia sclarea, which is biennial/perennial in my garden. The second year plants emerge in cold weather, and easily out-compete my local weeds. It produced lots of seeds which have the same culinary properties as common chia. I'm calling it chia. (Perhaps Mediterranean chia would be appropriate?) Productivity was much greater than flax. It's very high in Omega-3 oils. I'm scaling up production to grow a crop big enough to eat on a daily basis.  |
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Post by Walk on Jan 14, 2018 9:08:20 GMT -5
I want to have more Omega-3 oils in my diet. So I have been exploring growing flax and chia. I have grown Salvia hispanica for the past few years. It seems to be day-length sensitive, so doesn't set seeds in my garden, though it grows into a huge plant. I hear that there are patented varieties of day-neutral chia that might be making their way into grocery stores. So it would be worthwhile to start screening them for ability to set seed in northern climates. A patent only lasts 20 years. I grew Salvia columbiana, last year. It produced seeds. It was a small plant that would be easily lost in the weeds. I intend to grow it a few more years to see if it can become more adapted to my garden. I grew Clary Sage, Salvia sclarea, which is biennial/perennial in my garden. The second year plants emerge in cold weather, and easily out-compete my local weeds. It produced lots of seeds which have the same culinary properties as common chia. I'm calling it chia. (Perhaps Mediterranean chia would be appropriate?) Productivity was much greater than flax. It's very high in Omega-3 oils. I'm scaling up production to grow a crop big enough to eat on a daily basis. You could also try Camelina sativa. It grows very well as far north as Finland. It's been grown commercially in Minnesota and we have grown it here too. We used to buy oil from a Minnesota grower but they discontinued their operation due to family crisis. Now we're getting 5 gal. bulk oil from Ole World Oils in eastern Washington that's organically grown but uncertified (https://camelinagold.com/). We like using chia seed to add to dried fruit that are being soaked to reconstitute and use as a "jam". Does the clary sage "gel" like chia? Does it have any strong flavor that might be weird with fruit? |
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jan 14, 2018 11:42:38 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse, I'm interested in your protocol for harvesting the chia/Clary Sage seeds. This year I grew a rather large test plot of Salvia miltiorrhiza aka Chinese Red Sage/Dang Shen. It is theoretically perennial here, and it flowered and produced a large qty of seed, but I only harvested about 4 ounces of it. The issue was that the seeds set sequentially on the stalks, so you often have open flowers at one end and dry seed at the other, which complicates harvesting. Also, the bracts are sticky, and take a while to dry down indoors enough to efficiently winnow the seed. We're actually growing it for the roots, so the seed isn't really a major interest, but this chia thread got me wondering about its edibility/omega 3 functionality since its a sage I know I can grow lots of seed from, if I can figure out how to harvest it easily. 
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Post by steev on Jan 14, 2018 21:09:31 GMT -5
Damn! I love how this forum sparks unforeseen avenues of interest.
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Post by orflo on Jan 15, 2018 3:10:12 GMT -5
I've been growing chia for years over here, Belgium, 51° north, no problem, the ones I have are not daylength sensitive and seeds ripen off by the end of August/September. A bigger patch is needed if you want to have some pounds of seeds :-)
If anyone is interested in seeds, just send me a pm,
Frank
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 16, 2018 0:40:40 GMT -5
oxbowfarm: I was winging it for the harvest of the Clary Sage (chia). I cut the whole plants off just above ground level when I estimated that some seeds were starting to fall out. Then I piled the stems on a tarp, and let them desiccate for a couple weeks before threshing. The seed pods face downward, and are open, so I may have erred on the side of harvesting too soon, fearing that seeds would be falling out. There were certainly a lot of plants that germinated in late summer. I'm intending to move them to a new bed in the spring.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 16, 2018 0:48:16 GMT -5
Walk: Clary sage has the same mucilaginous properties as common chia. If soaked in water it gets a gel-sack around it. The diameter of Clary sage seeds is 1.5 mm, compared to 0.75 mm for common chia. It doesn't have weird taste to me.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 16, 2018 1:06:14 GMT -5
Damn as well!
I didn't know chia was in the sage family! Now i guess not all sage is in the chia family but still! Now im more intruigued. Will have to pay more attention to sage seeds now.. And these close chia relatives..
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 16, 2018 2:44:05 GMT -5
I didn't know chia was in the sage family! Now i guess not all sage is in the chia family but still! Now im more intruigued. Knowing how you like genetics... It looks like DNA analysis of the Salvia genus indicates that it's actually composed of three separate clades, so in a proper taxonomy what does that mean? That Salvia should be divided into three separate geni? I'm sure not going to try to figure out which clade each of the species I've mentioned actually belongs to. |
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Post by philagardener on Jan 16, 2018 7:52:07 GMT -5
I didn't know chia was in the sage family! Now i guess not all sage is in the chia family but still! Now im more intruigued. Knowing how you like genetics... It looks like DNA analysis of the Salvia genus indicates that it's actually composed of three separate clades, so in a proper taxonomy what does that mean? That Salvia should be divided into three separate geni? I'm sure not going to try to figure out which clade each of the species I've mentioned actually belongs to. The 2004 study that established those relationships ( www.amjbot.org/content/91/7/1115.full ) put Salvia sclarea in Clade I and Salvia columbariae in Clade II (figure 4). Salvia hispanica is in Clade II (but a different subgroup).  |
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ethin
gardener
Plant Breeder and Graphic Designer in Cache Valley Utah, USDA Zone 4b
Posts: 214
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Post by ethin on Jan 16, 2018 19:59:59 GMT -5
Basil seeds are said to be just as useful if not more so than chia, but that's probably a discussion for another thread.
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Post by Walk on Jan 17, 2018 9:27:17 GMT -5
Walk: Clary sage has the same mucilaginous properties as common chia. If soaked in water it gets a gel-sack around it. The diameter of Clary sage seeds is 1.5 mm, compared to 0.75 mm for common chia. It doesn't have weird taste to me. Thanks Joseph! I looked up Clary Sage and found it's a Zone 5 or warmer plant. Too bad we're in Minnesota Zone 4. Regular culinary sage isn't very hardy here either and does better potted and brought indoors. I think we'll stick with flax and camelina which both grow easily here. The Clary Sage looks very pretty though - darn. |
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