Had an idea for an advertising campaign based on the purple colour of the ears that matches black-grass almost perfectly:

Have a black-grass problem?

Go naked to hide your shame!

Harper Adams naked barley has been carefully colour-matched to hide the dirty purple stain of black-grass on your field - if your neighbours can't see, you can pretend it isn't there! 

On a more serious note - after crunching the data, I saw that the GAI (Green Area Index) of the facultative barley in November was more than twice that of KWS Cassia, so much more competitive in autumn when most black-grass germinates.

Other reasons to grow my barley:

2-row vs. KWS Cassia

6-row with 108 grains per ear

Many farmers complain about the trend for modern varieties to be late maturing - be careful what you wish for: this will be ready in a month (late June).

Why vernalisation matters

Vernalisation, the need for a period of cold over winter before a plant can switch from vegetative to reproductive development, is sometimes seen as a bit of a nuisance. It imposes a 'last safe sowing date', meaning that seed sown in the spring will not produce grains.

However, if the vernalisation requirement is very low or non-existant, early autumn sown crops are vulnerable to precocious ear development and frost damage as seen in the ICARDA-bred barley below.  October sowing of this variety has been OK in the past, but September 20 was too early, especially with the very mild autumn we had in 2013.

Fortunately the variety bred at Harper Adams from a UK x ICARDA cross (on the left) looks better (ICARDA on the right).  Best ear I have found in this population so far is a 6-row with 18 triplets on each side = 18 x 3 x 2 = 108 grains per ear! Hope we get enough sun to fill all those grains.

   

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.