This is one of the few grain crops that performs fairly consistently in my humid subtropical zone with high bird pressure. My main productive strain is the orange Hartman giant, which I like because it is tall enough to canopy over our weeds. I did get exceptional yields from Oscar Blanco many years ago but remember it being quite short and requiring more vigilant weeding (not to mention awkward harvesting).
A couple of questions for those who might know more:
1. How does one go about encouraging hybridisation between different amaranth strains (short of extremely fiddly hand pollination)?
2. I have noticed inconsistent germination of seed, with them coming up more readily on soil that is either fertilised with aged manure or burnt, so I suspect the seed might respond to nitrate levels (and wild amaranth are nitrate accumulators I believe). Has anyone experienced the same?
3. Do people have other recommended varieties that they might be interested in swapping? Maybe we could set up a seed exchange like the kenosha potato project. If people want to send seed samples to me I could repackage and split each strain to redistribute a wider variety back to each participant.
