Back in the 1990's, I tried growing a lot of spring planted naked seeded barley varieties from SSE. They grew well, but had weak straw and lodged every single year. Maybe they were adapted to a drier climate that didn't have the wind and rain we can get in the summer. Winter barley is grown for feed sometimes here in Ohio. It is common barley, with the hull that can only be removed with machinery. I got some Ohio winter barleys from GRIN, all common, but one from China that was naked seeded. The Ohio winter barleys had strong straw, the Chinese one had weaker straw, and wasn't as easy threshing as the spring naked barleys. I crossed the winter barleys with the spring, and have selected over the years for winter hardiness and hulless easy thresh seeds. I've continued to cross the best plants, not focusing on making one variety, as much as improving the population.
Barley awns are not fun when you are hand harvesting and hand threshing, so I have selected against them. The plants are all either hooded, or what I call awnless, that have awns 1/4 inch long or less. There is still variability in ease of threshing, but they are mostly pretty good. Seed colors vary from light golden, to darker brown, and gray. All plants are 6 row. Winter hardiness is good here in central Ohio. It has been slower to get strong straw along with hulless seeds, about 1/3 of plants have that combination. Even the worst plants have stronger straw than the spring barley that went into it. But not as good straw as my other winter grains. As others have found; birds and small rodents love the seeds. I have to use bird netting in my small patches. What I really like from a crop rotation standpoint, is that the barley matures earlier than wheat, about 2 weeks earlier. This year I was harvesting the barley at the end of May into early June.
I've tried to attach a photo showing range of seed colors.
I'm very interested in your grain projects, especially barley and oats; I haven't had much luck with them myself. When do you plant your winter grains?
I haven't grown barley for a few years, but I found 2 row to be more productive per SqM than 6 row, simply (I think) because, with the lighter individual heads, 2 row lodges less.
I don't mind awns, they seem fairly effective at deterring birds! I wear leather gloves for threshing/winnowing
Tim DH
I plant the winter grains around Oct.1 here, although with the warmer falls we're getting, up to Oct 7-10 looks like it can work. I think the Hessian fly date here is like Sept 27 or so, they recommend waiting til past that to plant.
Of the spring barleys I grew in the past, it seemed like the two row had stronger stalks, but were also taller. The 2 row and 6 row lodged about equally for me. The awns didn't dissuade the birds here, and I felt they might increase lodging when it was rainy and windy, and the awns held moisture and caught more wind. Early on there were both 2 row and 6 row winter types showing up in my spring X winter crosses, but I decided to focus on 6 row. I think the local farm grown winter barleys here are all 6 row.
Quote from: Mike Deyo on 2024-10-19, 11:58:06 AMI plant the winter grains around Oct.1 here, although with the warmer falls we're getting, up to Oct 7-10 looks like it can work. I think the Hessian fly date here is like Sept 27 or so, they recommend waiting til past that to plant.
Thanks, I guess it's a bit late, but I think I will plant some. I have a mix of lots of kinds form Oregon Sate University Oregon State Barley (https://barleyworld.org/orei-project). I planted some this spring with mixed results and forgot I still had the rest. Sounds like I need to get it the ground. May be a risk but, I'm way south in Indiana, right by the Ohio River so maybe it will work.
Do you know if the mix you have from Oregon State is just winter types, or does it contain spring growing types as well? It was unclear to me when I read about their project. It seems to me that if it is a mix of winter and spring types, that's a bad idea. When you fall plant, the spring types might tend to overgrow the winter types, and then eventually winterkill, acting like a weed for the winter types.
I don't remember what all was in their mix but as I recall it was pretty much everything they could find. The link to them seems not to have exactly the same info as was there before, seems like they may have changed the focus of the project. They also did not acknowledge the grow reports and photos I sent. O well I still have some of the original seed and some of my own that I harvested from it this year. Chipmunks and birds, mostly chipmunks got some of the earliest to mature so I ended up going ahead and harvesting while some wasn't fully dry. I figured whatever was mature enough to be viable is probably good and some might not be. That is fine as I like fast maturity in all my crops. What I got was also not quite as hull-less as I had hoped. Either that or I just don't know how to process it.
I'm going to go ahead and plant some of the original seed just to see what happens although it is so dry here right now, I don't have high expectation much will come from it. By the time it rains it may be too late for it to do much before it gets too cold. I'm saving my own spring planted seed from this year to plant next spring. I planted in late February this past spring and it did very well, except for the birds and chipmunks.
My winter hardy naked barley is heading now. We had -6F with a few inches of snow as the low this winter, and numerous nights in the teens with no snow cover. There was very little winter kill. I planted it September 30, which was a bit too early, as a few plants wanted to start rushing into sending up seed stalks in December, which I cut off because they would have winter killed. A remnant of the spring barley's genes involved in the original crosses from years ago. The second photo shows what they look like over the winter. The short days and cold temperature induce a winter growth habit where the leaves stay low, multiple tillers develop, and more of the plant's energy goes into the root system. The farther half of the row are about 100 F-1 plants from crosses I made last spring.
Those are beautiful, Mike.
Do you get hard frosts of the ground in Ohio? I mean the ground frozen solid. Or are your low temperatures brief enough that the ground doesn't freeze too deep.
We definitely get the ground frozen here in Ohio. It's not unusual to get 3-4 weeks in a row where it never gets above 32F. Clear nights in the low teens with no snow cover lead to lots of ground freezing. The winters have been getting warmer over the last 20 years, with less snow cover, which leads to the ground freezing more and thawing more, which is almost harder on the plants. With my barley, the bigger problem is early summer thunderstorms, with heavy rain and wind, that can cause lodging. I need to select more for stronger stems, like I have with winter wheat. That's one reason I've selected against awns in the barley, as they hold rain and cause more lodging.
We had less snow this winter here too. It was hard on the perennials.
When we have good snow cover, there are often green plants underneath when it thaws. But then they don't always survive 'spring' with many freezes afterwards. Bare ground freezes are the worst, for sure.
Very impressed with your barley winter hardiness!