Harvesting wheat, barley and other seeds.

[Greatshield17]

Are these barley grains good, I didn’t realize you had to harvest them at a specific time, the seeds are black are they still good?

Also, this is wheat right, I planted both wheat and barley, I thought it was barley but upon closer in I noticed that it has two rows of seeds instead of four, is it wheat?

I’m going to harvest more barley and wheat tomorrow, as well as green onion seeds to save and replant; please provide any advice on how to harvest these.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

The black may be infected with ergot. A smut that can ruin harvests. Ergot poisoning can cause anything from nausea to bleeding feet, to death. Do not consume or give to animals. Bag up the grain in plastic, and throw it in the garbage. Or incinerate it. Don't dispose of it in the open or compost it. It will spread to other grasses. Try not to even touch it too much.

If you are unsure if it is ergot or not, email photos of the grains to your state's agricultural university extension. In the mean time, don't touch it.

Ergot usually sticks out from the chaff, and this appears to be under the chaff so I am unsure.

 

[Gerontius]

Ergot is something I hoped folks would remember from history classes--the burning of the witches in Europe was a mix of misogyny and ergot poisoning. People would think they were bewitched, and then blame the local odd woman (often as not, probably the autistic ones) and then someone somewhere was going to get burned to death.

Perhaps one of the cases in history where "touch grass" wasn't good advice.

 

[Greatshield17]

The black may be infected with ergot. A smut that can ruin harvests. Ergot poisoning can cause anything from nausea to bleeding feet, to death. Do not consume or give to animals. Bag up the grain in plastic, and throw it in the garbage. Or incinerate it. Don't dispose of it in the open or compost it. It will spread to other grasses. Try not to even touch it too much.

If you are unsure if it is ergot or not, email photos of the grains to your state's agricultural university extension. In the mean time, don't touch it.

Ergot usually sticks out from the chaff, and this appears to be under the chaff so I am unsure.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye open ergot when I harvest, the ones pictured above grew rather lower than the rest of the crop so I guess that played a part in ergot growing on them.

 

[Greatshield17]

Hmm, perhaps I should wait a bit before harvesting my green onion seeds, the flowers are brown and the seeds are clearly visible, but they are not as brown as in the video above. Part of the problems is, green onions need a lot of water, and it's sometimes difficult for me to find the time to give them enough water and thus, some of the flowers have browned due to under-watering.

 

[Greatshield17]

Do drooping heads of wheat mean that it’s ready to be harvested, just like barley?

And is this here a good way to dry grains?