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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-678
Barley
Hordeum vulgare
Barley is the cereal that grows where wheat and maize give up, feeding people from the Andes to the Tibetan plateau. The grain is eaten whole or pearled, milled into flour, and malted for beer and whiskey, and worldwide more of the crop goes to livestock feed than to human food. It also doubles as an unusually tough cover crop, tolerating alkaline and salty soils that wheat cannot handle - it is even used to reclaim salt-damaged land - and it establishes fast enough to nurse wind-sensitive seedlings like carrots and onions through their first weeks.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 2–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 1–4 ft
- Mature spread
- 6–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 4–12 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
Similar plants
Discover more plants with shared forest layers or growing conditions.
Adzuki Bean
Vigna angularis (Willd.) Ohwi & H.Ohashi
Adzuki is the odd one out among the beans in this group: a very hot summer is actively too hot for it, since heat above about 35C damages…
Herbaceous · USDA 3–11
African Eggplant
Solanum aethiopicum
African Eggplant, also called gboma or scarlet eggplant, is a West and Central African relative of eggplant that gives two harvests from one…
Herbaceous · USDA 8–12
Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
Agrimony is a slender herbaceous perennial of sunny, disturbed ground across Europe and western Asia, grown mainly for the tannin-rich leaves…
Herbaceous · USDA 5–9
Alfalfa
Medicago sativa
Alfalfa is a deep-rooted perennial legume grown worldwide as one of the richest forage crops available, its taproot running six metres or…
Herbaceous · USDA 4–11
Aloe Vera
Aloe vera
Aloe Vera is a stemless, clump-forming succulent with thick, spiny-edged leaves that store a clear gel used to soothe burns, wounds and skin…
Herbaceous · USDA 10–12
Amaranth Greens
Amaranthus tricolor
Amaranth greens are one of the few leafy vegetables actually built for peak summer heat rather than one that just tolerates it - sown once…
Herbaceous · USDA 2–11
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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