2011/09/04

I find your lack of dormancy disturbing

Disaster and quinoa.

Yes, they go along well.

I discovered 12-24 hours of intermittent rain are more than enough to germinate mature quinoa seeds directly on the plant. Actually problems rose on one plant so far, but I have reason to believe it will get worse.
I understand it never rains in Bolivia's harvesting season, otherwise their quinoa crops would be gone withing half a day.

It really seems, like if I needed further confirmations, that quinoa will never do well out of its native climate.
The sad thing is I can't afford to entrust my life on weather forecasts or harvest a whole plot of quinoa right before it rains. I think the seeds I saved are the seeds I'll resow next year and the long season strains may go to hell if they won't survive this moist period.
Dear quinoa, I find your lack of seed dormancy disturbing.

Why this sudden turn of events?
Mostly because I now possess two very important pieces of information:

a) I've found chenopodium album's seed aminoacid composition

b) I've managed to find chenopodium pallidicaule seeds and a somewhat detailed description of its behaviour.

given these, I think I could probably discard quinoa. More to follow.




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