A.
B. which one uis maize and which is teosinte?
this ear of einkorn whaet is done and so has reproduced ten thousand ( or so ) year old dna in my yard...there is more that is still finishing up, however ths one will do for now...
this ear of hard read winter wheat has finished as well...one of a number of survivors from the past winter...
so i brought them in and took a series of badly underexposed photos...this one will serve to give a notion of relative size...einkorn left, hard red wither wheat right...they were both damp and a bit moldy from all the recent rain ( we will get to that ) and so were fairly simple to thresh and winnow ( the einkorn is a very stubborn grain when dry so i was a bit surprised at the ease it displayed in threshing )...
the ear of winter wheat produced fifty-three "berries"...
the ear of einkorn, nine...a clear indication that the winter wheat has been "improved" for higher yields ( through artifical selection, not genetic engineering in the monsanto sense...it was genetically engineered, but by selective breeding...the seed i used was non gmo ) and an easier process of threshing and winowing...the einkorn still retains traits of its "wild and weedy" ancestor and has remained basically unchanged since its original domestication...its intransigence in those matters may be why a pound of einkorn wheat flour wil cost you about double a pound of garden variety whole wheat flour at the store ( or, more likely, on line...not a popular supermarket staple...around here anyway )...they say it is "more nutritious" and chalk its cost up to that...perhaps it is...it is also a lot more work which is whay ancient agriculturalists "improved" it...i won't be milling any of this...rather i will save it for seed, replanting the hard red winter wheat in september and the einkorn in late march of next year...
we were in an "abnormally dry" weather regime until last thursday...this morning's rain squall brings the five day rainfall total in my yard to 3.7"...which is why there's mold on the wheat and flash flood watches abound...
on the other hand the grapes are swelling visibly...i'll take it.
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