Barley

Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a major food and
animal feed crop, a member of the grass family.

Barley is the fifth largest cultivated cereal
crop in the world (53 million hectares or 132     Scientific classification
million acres). Major barley producers are :      Kingdom:   Plantae
 Russia    7.2 million hectares                   Division:  Magnoliophyta
 Ukraine   3.7 million hectares                   Class:     Liliopsida
 Turkey    3.6 million hectares                   Order:     Poales
 Canada    4.5 million hectares                   Family:    Poaceae
 Australia 3.0 million hectares                   Genus:     Hordeum

 Spain     3.3 million hectares                            Species
 Morocco   2.3 million hectares                   Hordeum arizonicum
                                                  Hordeum brachyantherum
 Iran      1.0 million hectares                   Hordeum bulbosum
 Iraq      1.2 million hectares                   Hordeum californica
                                                  Hordeum depressum
 USA       2.1 million hectares                   Hordeum intercedens
                                                  Hordeum jubatum
Cultivated barley is related to the wild barley   Hordeum marinum
(Hordeum spontaneum) which still can be found in  Hordeum murinum
the Middle East. Evidence suggests that           Hordeum pusillum
domestication of barley started 6000 years BC in  Hordeum secalinum
the Middle East.                                  Hordeum spontaneum
                                                  Hordeum vulgare
Barley is widely adaptable and is currently a             References
major crop of the temperate and tropical areas.
                                                  ITIS 40865 2002-09-22
Barley is a staple food for humans and animals. Malting barley is a key
ingredient in beer and whiskey production.

The 1881 Household Cyclopedia adds:

     Next to wheat the most valuable grain is barley, especially on
     light and sharp soils.

     It is a tender grain and easily hurt in any of the stages of its
     growth, particularly at seed time; a heavy shower of rain will
     then almost ruin a crop on the best prepared land; and in all the
     after processes greater pains and attention are required to ensure
     success than in the case of other grains. The harvest process is
     difficult, and often attended with danger; even the threshing of
     it is not easily executed with machines, because the awn generally
     adheres to the grain, and renders separation from the straw a
     troublesome task. Barley, in fact, is raised at greater expense
     than wheat, and generally speaking is a more hazardous crop.
     Except upon rich and genial soils, where climate will allow wheat
     to be perfectly reared, it ought not to be cultivated.

Varieties

Barley may be divided into two sorts, fall and spring; to which may be added
a bastard variety, called bear or bigg, which affords similar nutriment or
substance, though of inferior quality. The spring is cultivated like oats;
the fall, like fall wheat. Early barley, under various names, was formerly
sown in Britain upon lands that had been previously summer-fallowed, or were
in high condition.

The most proper seed season for spring barley is any time in March or April,
though we have seen good crops produced, the seed of which was sown at a
much later period.

Preparation of ground

Barley is chiefly taken after turnips, sometimes after peas and beans, but
rarely by good farmers either after wheat or oats, unless under special
circumstances. When sown after turnips it is generally taken with one
furrow, which is given as fast as the turnips are consumed, the ground thus
receiving much benefit from the spring frosts. But often two, or more
furrows are necessary for the fields last consumed, because when a spring
drought sets in, the surface, from being poached by the removal or
consumption of the crop, gets so hardened as to render a greater quantity of
ploughing, harrowing and rolling necessary than would otherwise be called
for. When sown after beans and peas, one winter and one spring ploughing are
usually bestowed: but when after wheat or oats, three ploughings are
necessary, so that the ground may be put in proper condition. These
operations are very ticklish in a wet and backward season, and rarely in
that case is the grower paid for the expense of his labor. Where land is in
such a situation as to require three ploughings before it can be seeded with
barley, it is better to summer-fallow it at once than to run the risks which
seldom fail to accompany a quantity of spring labor. If the weather be dry,
moisture is lost during the different processes, and an imperfect braird
necessarily follows; if it be wet the benefit of ploughing is lost, and all
the evils of a wet seed time are sustained by the future crop.

The quantity sown is different in different cases, according to the quality
of the soil and other circumstances. Upon very rich lands eight pecks per
acre are sometimes sown; twelve is very common, and upon poor land more is
sometimes given.

By good judges a quantity of seed is sown sufficient to ensure a full crop,
without depending on its sending out offsets; indeed, where that is done few
offsets are produced, the crop grows and ripens equally, and the grain is
uniformly good.

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