Facultative barley - what's that?

In my first attempt to create winter naked barley, I used a cross using a Syrian variety, bred by ICARDA.

Sown into cold mud in November 2012, the yield was good (7 t/ha), and even better, the quality was excellent with big bold grains.

So in 2013 we sowed on 20 September (an early sowing for winter barley to maximise yield potential) and the seedlings sprang out of the ground in a week.

Autumn 2013 was very mild, and the crop marched on too quickly.

By March it was apparent that the crop was too far forward, and there was damage by waterlogging.

The reason why being forward (developing too fast) is a problem is that the ear develops inside the plant too early and begins to move upwards and so is vulnerable to frost damage in late winter.  Thankfully March 2014 was mild (unlike March 2013) so for the most part we got away with it.  A few plants showed frost damaged ears (and a lot in the comparison plots of the Syrian parent), and these were rogued out to improve the population.  

So what does this mean? It appears that the first attempt at 'winter' naked barley I have is a 'facultative' type - a winter-hardy spring barley, that unlike a true winter barley, does not need a long cold period in winter (vernalisation) to initiate flowering next spring, but unlike spring barley, can survive winter.  The lack of vernalisation requirement means that this variety should not be sown too early in autumn - probably from 10 October onwards, but will do some experiments this autumn. 

This could be very useful, with a flexible sowing window from October until April - in the USA facultative barley is described as 'plant when you can'.

For a true winter barley, for sowing in late September-mid October, I'll concentrate on the Glacier crosses.

So now I have three types to suit all situations - spring, facultative and winter.