White Spelt

A change from barley for this post - proving that I don't have a one track mind.

Wheat can be divided and classified into groups in several ways: spring vs. winter; hard vs. soft; milling vs. feed.  A less used classification (in the UK, anyway) is grain colour, probably because nearly all the wheat in the UK is red-grained.  White-grained wheat lacks the tannins in the seed coat that can give bitter flavours to wholegrain, so is very suited to a range of healthy wholegrain foods.  The disadvantage of white wheat is susceptibility to sprouting, which was the only weakness of 'Holdfast' wheat, released by the Plant Breeding Institute in 1935, and long considered the gold standard for UK bread making wheat quality.

Holdfast wheat grains - super quality bold clean grains (from Mike Ambrose at the Germplasm Resources Unit at the John Innes Centre).

Nearly three years ago I had a daft idea that I scribbled down in my field notebook "white spelt??". 

The origins of European spelt wheat are a subject of debate, but the most likely theory is that spelt came from a chance hybridisation between hexaploid wheat Triticum aestivum (genome = AABBDD) and tetraploid emmer Triticum turgidum (AABB), as the D genome shared by modern bread wheat and spelt is identical but the A and B genomes differ.

Spelt remained in cultivation in areas around the Alps where it was better able to tolerate colder poorer soils and is now undergoing a resurgence due to its flavour and suitability for low-input growing.

My idea was that a white-grained spelt would have a unique sweeter wholegrain flavour, possibly be suited to sowing later in autumn (a practice to control black-grass, but risks sowing into wetter colder seedbeds) and perhaps the tough glumes would help protect against moisture ingress (and so help reduce sprouting) and fungal pathogens.

Spelt can be easily hybridised with common wheat by conventional plant breeding, so I made the cross between a modern white grain wheat and spelt, grew on the progeny and selected the white grain 'spelty' plants.

This is not proper science (just curiosity-driven mucking about) so will never get a BBSRC grant for it, nor is industry-led applied science - millers haven't asked for it and farmers won't be interested in growing a lower yielding crop without a market.  

Not sure about baking quality etc. as have never had enough seed - a few trial plots sown this autumn to hopefully get some grain to play with next harvest.
 
Probably be never more than a curiosity, but here are some photos:

Normal red spelt vs. white spelt

Holdfast white wheat vs. white spelt - spelt grains are longer with a keel

Spring-sown white spelt - v. late to ripen vs. spring barley, best sow in autumn

winter-sown white spelt vs. Solstice wheat - ears much longer on the spelt

uzu - Japanese barley in Shropshire

Firstly I haven't posted in a while - busy with harvest and now getting ready for the new term at Harper Adams.

I'm now using twitter for small updates and photos and this blog when I want to go into more depth than 140 characters allows.

My twitter handle is @naked_barley 

Earlier in the year I promised to explain what uzu barley is.

If you've seen The Seven Samurai (the Kurosawa original), you may remember that the villagers' plight is that that bandits have stolen their rice harvest and will come back to steal the barley, leaving the villagers to starve, hence the urgency to employ protection before the harvest.

In the double crop system traditionally used in Japan, mugi (winter corn) is sown after the rice harvest in October. Barley or rye are the preferred choices as they mature before the rainy season in June, and are then followed once more by rice.  

Most Japanese naked barley varieties grown as mugi are uzu types, which are dwarf varieties, with stiff straw, ideal for growing in fertile soils.  The uzu dwarfing gene confers insensitivity to brassinosteroids (BR), whilst Western dwarf barley uses genes such as sdw, conferring insensitivity to gibberellin (GA).

The uzu gene also causes the leaves to be short and erect and prevents the lower stems etiolating (extending) in response to shade - hence uzu barley may be suitable for high plant densities to suppress weeds.  

Grains of uzu barley are round and fat and ideal for a range of food uses.

So why not try uzu in the UK?

The problem is the lack of adaptation to the UK, especially to day length.  Anyone who's tried growing Oriental vegetables such as pak choi will have found that the long days in summer often cause the plants to flower (bolt).  Spring sown uzu barley sent to me by Mike Ambrose at the John Innes Centre when I was at Bangor did exactly this.  It produced ears very quickly without tillering (producing extra stems) and the biomass and yields were low.  Sowing in October produced better results, but Bangor's Henfaes Research Centre is near sea level on the coast and has very mild winters.  When I autumn-sowed uzu barley at Harper the Shropshire winter killed more than half the plants - back to the drawing board.

I crossed the Japanese Kitagawa Chobo with Westminster and the results were encouraging, except for a tendency for the stem base to be weak, so I crossed again onto Westminster (a backcross).

Now we can start to see the uzu trait in an adapted background.

The uzu plots are also darker green but the erect leaves let more light into the lower canopy - a more even distribution of photosynthesis.

Grains are excellent - specific weight of 80 kg/hl vs. 65-70 in 'normal' barley.

Barley is an excellent food grain, being rich in beta-glucan that can lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of type-2 diabetes.

Unfortunately all barley currently grown in the UK has grain covered by an inedible hull or husk.

Naked barley grain threshes free from the hull so is perfect for food uses.

Again, unfortunately there are no naked barley varieties bred for UK conditions - that's where my efforts in plant breeding come in.

Naked barley grains bred at Harper Adams from a cross between Lawina (a low yielding, disease-susceptible naked barley, but with excellent grain quality) and Westminster (a high yielding, disease-resistant UK covered barley).