Grains 2022

[Steph S]

A closeup of the three bread wheats showing their heights.
I was surprised at the compact growth of Purple Wheat, since the description said it could grow to 4 ft tall.  That being said, I'm favoring Purple Wheat as a candidate for spring planting with peas on account of the sturdy straw, no lodging so far, and a better (taller) height for dwarf peas than the Black Hulless Barley which I tried this season.  They didn't lodge either but were pretty much engulfed by the peas.
Purple Wheat is also surprisingly early at only 3 days later than Prelude.  So it is a good candidate for us, I believe, even in a less stellar year than this one (very steady heat this summer.  More days above 20 C than I've ever seen for this time of year). It has dark blue-green foliage which seemed to be quite resistant to the rust during anthesis but has since become streaky after our one heavy rain.  IDK if this is just part of the life cycle as they are now filling and ripening, or a susceptibility related to environmental cause.  Nonetheless, these are good looking heads, and the purple grain is a plus, the grain is beautiful and rich in antho, so I think we will be planting more of this assuming that it ripens well.

[Steph S]

A somewhat windy pic of the tetraploid bed, showing relative heights of the tall Blue Tinge Emmers on the left, Militina in the middle, and Rivet in the back row on the north side.  Militina is still extending so may be a bit taller when done with anthesis.   The tall BT Emmers are diverse in a number of characters - head color and size, height, foliage color, earliness.
This Rivet from Prairie Garden Seeds is indeed a 'miracle wheat' type with branched heads.  They seemed to struggle to get out of the boot, but the heads are impressive.  Very tall and some have bent over but otherwise no more lodging at this stage than the other wheats.  I am pleasantly surprised to see that they have quite a healthy foliage and seem reasonably resistant to our leaf rust.   Those rivets in the second (West) bed are both shorter and have smaller heads.  Since this small bed is also partly shaded, I'm taking the height and head size as a difference in nutrient status.  The bed was fallow last summer but for some weeds, so it didn't get the horse manure and bone meal that went into the garlic plantings, therefore nothing special to scavenge in the way of ferts.   If anything this suggests to me that there is actually something left to scavenge after garlic, even with a spring planting.  So that's encouraging. 

[Steph S]

Zanduri wheats:   The Militina is certainly late, but anthesis did overlap with Rivet so not impossibly late.  I have hopes it might be earlier yet from a fall planting. 
I am a bit, okay more than a bit, smitten with this beautiful grain.  The colors at anthesis are stunning.
Although the heads are quite small, the tillering was really impressive, so there are many many heads.
The leaves are grey-green and hairy and they do seem to be living up to the reputation of disease resistance.
Another plus, this is a free threshing grain (Q) and is reported to have protein up to 24% iirc, that is as much as peas and would certainly make it a worthy addition to our diet if indeed it thrives here.
Zhukovsky (in a different bed) is even later, did not tiller as much,  and just getting into anthesis and full extension of its stems.  It doesn't appear to be resistant to the leaf rust we have here, which is disappointing.   Hexaploid but not free threshing and probably not freely crossing with others.  More about it as it develops.

[Steph S]

Just a comment about the short BT Emmers, which are in the back bed with Prelude, since I had a couple of pics worth posting.   
As already mentioned they appear to be extremely susceptible to the leaf rust, and were so small and thin I hardly believed they would make any heads - they did though.  The grain will be smaller than the tall emmers, for sure.  But they do have a redeeming feature - quite lovely range of colors not only red but into the purple.
I'm not sure of a context in which this short small grain would be the top choice, but there is probably a place for them somewhere.   The stems are too thin and bendable - and short - to be a good candidate companion for peas, and I would say the same of Prelude.  OTOH they might be surprisingly resistant to lodging for exposed sites.

It is possible that there could be some crossing with Prelude, as they were in anthesis at the same time.  Prelude being the taller of the two, very likely shed some pollen on the short emmers, but I couldn't say what their chances are of being receptive to a chance cross in our generally humid conditions.  I planted them together to compare earliness, but the short emmer lines could actually benefit from Prelude's larger size and better resistance to rust, if a cross occurred.

[Tim DH]

Hi Steph,
   Your mention of Zanduri Wheat sparked my interest... I found this document online:

https://www.liveseed.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/nyhedsbrev_Maj2021_ENG.pdf

   An interesting list of grains starts on page 6

   The host project itself 'Liveseed' seems to have finished in 2021? But I guess the constituent parts won't have!

Tim DH

[Steph S]

Yes, I've read that one too.  It's wonderful to read about the interesting work being done in Europe, especially the north. There's a significant movement to explore grain for organic growers. His comments about the various species of wheats and how well they grow in Denmark is important to know.
He mentioned Khorasan not being winter hardy, and one of the grains in my "tall Emmer" group was probably Khorasan.  It was probably a stray seed, didn't look like Emmer.  Anyway, not one of them survived the late winter planting here.  Polish is another really interesting looking wheat, but I took to heart the warning that they aren't hardy.
He makes a really interesting point too about the amount of diversity in the Zanduri, and of selecting for the right match to conditions.  There's a lot of variation in the emmers as well, judging by a few papers I've looked up.  For specific traits you need to do as he's doing, trial many lines from the gene banks or if you're lucky, someone has already done some work to point you in the way.  You might get disease resistance (or stress tolerance, or..etc) or not, when you try a random commercially available line.  Still it's a place to start.  I got mine from https://prairiegardenseeds.ca/, you should take a look at the collection there.  Really quite a lot of interesting grains, I was delighted to see what he was offering.

I can see that low yield might be a problem for farming with Militina, as the heads are quite small, although numerous.   And the classic correlation between high protein and low yield.   Still I'm very curious to see how well it will perform as a fall planted grain.  I would expect it to tiller even more, and I'm thinking it should be earlier from a fall planting, but there is also a gene for late flowering involved.
One thing about the species wheats, they have some important genetics for adapting to new or extreme conditions.  So for me, it is worth growing even for a moderate yield, if it proves to be reliable under unusual stress. 

[Steph S]

Being so much of a newb, I'm going back and reading about physiological maturity and such as the wheats are filling and ripening.
This was a nice review of wheat physiology and stress responses, and genetic traits that are relevant to stress tolerance.
https://www.fao.org/3/y4011e/y4011e06.htm

"The time-span of each development phase essentially depends on genotype, temperature, day-length and sowing date. "
"Various environmental stress, particularly heat but also water and salinity, may shorten the wheat growth phases."

It's becoming obvious to me that although Purple Wheat was only a few days behind Prelude for heading and anthesis it's going to be Prelude that ripens before all the rest, closely followed by those short emmers and one genotype from the tall emmers that has a grass green leaf and red/pink colored heads, that is earlier than the others.  And the fall planted Goldkorn spelt looks like it'll be next.

"Physiological maturity is usually defined as the time when the flag leaf and spikes turn yellow (Hanft and Wych, 1982)."
Another detailed description of physiological maturity at  https://mccracken.ca.uky.edu/files/identifying_wheat_growth_stages_agr224.pdf
"All kernel dry matter has accumulated.
Kernels contain approximately 40% moisture.
Kernels can be split with a fingernail.
Moisture is not detected when kernel is split open.
Kernels, head, and stem are turning yellow.
Straw and leaves are beginning to turn yellow, but considerable green tissue remains."

They are not quite there but they are approaching that stage.
Barley and peas are on the right in the pic, Huron is in the right back corner behind them, for a comparison of how green a stage it is in.

So it looks like the small emmer have some virtue in earliness, although Prelude may be a bit ahead yet.

[Steph S]

About the surviving tall Blue Tinge Emmer group:  a lot of diversity here, even though there were but a few tall plants in the group last season.
Most of the seeds were from red/pink colored heads - 70 grains - which turned out to be a mixed group with grass green and blue green foliage noticeable as a difference early on.  It has also turned out that the grass green foliated group are quite a bit earlier than the blue-green, and the other colors which all have blue-green leaves and stems. 
19 grains of blue-tinged tall emmer were sown, which came from a single head.
Similar amounts from a packet labeled "black awned" and another "green head". 
Only two plants survived in the green head row, but they are true to type.
In the 'black awned' row there hasn't been a prominent black awn, they are mostly green heads with red-brown markings, and raised a ? about mislabeling or other error. 
But the 'blue tinge' row that came from one head is clearly segregating for both color and probably earliness, and perhaps an 'irregular head' or branching trait.  A black awned and blue tinged variant emerged this week in the row.
So this is really exciting for me, to see diversity coming from one head and not a bottleneck of one fixed type.  There are about a dozen heads in the row from that one blue head, and these alone would make a diverse population.   
IDK how freely all these phenos of 'Blue Tinge Emmer' are crossing with one another, but it is certainly worthy of the name 'landrace' with so much diversity in a wee pack of seeds.  Even though there were only a few tall plants, there's a lot happening in that group alone.  That is from Dan at https://www.saltspringseeds.com/

Of course it's great that color is a factor, because the diversity is especially evident.
Early pics show the foliage color difference.  Blue vs pink head color in late July.

[Steph S]

Some phenos of the grain heads, starting with non blue tinged.

[Steph S]

These different blue-tinged phenos are from a single head.
I doubt that this crossed in the field last season, since they are taller than the rest, but it might be possible that the tall ones crossed.
Actually, I doubt there were any crosses in my field last season.  Why because the tall plants would tend to shed pollen on the short ones, and seed from short plants was all short.  Although the tall were quite a bit later come to think of it.  They could've crossed among themselves, or else they were crossed already in the packet.
The one with the black awn was latest to emerge.  Those with the odd grains sticking off and colored yellow, and purple instead of grey stripes, were earliest.

[Steph S]

Not sure if those photos do justice to the color difference, we're having high UV and pics are not the best, trying again to find one that clearly shows the purple streaks vs the grey.

[Steph S]

Weather has continued hot with a high humidex into the 30's C. 
The stems and leaves of Goldkorn spelt turned yellow and purple overnight.
From what I have read this is a stress response, not a disease.  The heads are still green but definitely more colorful after the change.

[Steph S]

A lot of new insects have turned up suddenly in the garden.  Some big hairy moth caterpillars but not on the wheat.  Grasshoppers often turn up late in the summer, usually just a few but their presence is a little alarming when you think about the tender leaves of fall planted grains.  Two species it seems, I have seen them near the grain beds (first one on the outside of a cloth barrier) and the larger one is in areas where tall grass hasn't been cut - there are a few for sure jumping as you walk through.  There seems to be some grain beetle action as well in the tall emmer and militina bed, and increasing presence of damselbugs.   Something seems to have laid white visible eggs on the awns of some emmers, at the same time grain beetles were found.  I have only seen beneficials frolicking on the awns so I'm hoping those eggs are theirs.

[Greenie DeS]

The next town over has had some bad grasshopper years, sometimes eating the equivalent amount of 1 cow per acre of the grain and hay fields. Luckily my chickens love grasshoppers. I wonder if I should run them through before I plant my winter grain?

My 5 seeds' worth of dango mugi barley are ripening their two dozen heads on the deck, the ripest one is at the dough stage right now. They're very free-threshing to the point I'm worried about them shattering so I'm keeping a close eye; the later tillers are still much greener than the main heads though. Very pleased with this variety and definitely going to plant some seeds to test as a fall-sown grain.

Meanwhile the triticales are tall but not super filled out yet. That barley just went so fast! Not sure these plants will give me seed in time for fall planting but I can certainly plant some of the original seed.

Some very late-sown chiddham white wheat (maybe I put it in mid-June?) is flowering.

[Steph S]

That's a great idea with the chickens.  The robins are gone here - haven't seen one since those heat warning days so I'd say their young are fledged and off to greener pastures.  Still plenty of Jays and Flickers and Ravens around but they're not like a flock of robins on patrol to feed the nest.  Jays are keeping to themselves but maybe pecking or planning to peck on soup peas when they get big enough.  I don't mind them taking a few but it would be nice if they enjoyed a grasshopper as well.   
I'm thinking at minimum I will clip or mow very short everything anywhere close to those beds where I mean to plant fall grain.
It also makes me wonder whether a later planting would be more successful.

So far I've cut the Prelude, the short Emmers, the tall red-pink Emmer with light green foliage and hung to dry and finish ripening as required.  Drying very fast in this heat.

I got a few samples of possible diseased heads from the very late short tiller chaff that was left.  Looking at DON test strips, and hoping the simplest (qualitative not quant) ones are less expensive.  I could definitely blow through a few tests just to train myself on the visual symptoms of FHB on different grains.  Also would be useful to test gravity separation as a method of screening out any contaminated grains.
Some useful comments about FHB prevention and contamination reduction here:
https://inspection.canada.ca/animal-health/livestock-feeds/regulatory-guidance/rg-8/eng/1347383943203/1347384015909?chap=1