CEREAL EXPERIMENTS AT CHICO, CALIF. 27 
to be well fixed in most selections, but very few are adapted to the 
Sacramento Valley. They do not yield well and shatter easily. Only 
one of these selections is of promise. This has Club Mariout as one 
parent and has been named Hero. It is now being tested in the plat 
experiments. 
In an effort to improve the ordinary Coast variety some 360 
selections from commercial fields were made in 1917. Coast as com- 
mercially grown is a composite variety whose various forms show 
considerable variations in yield. The best of these selections are 
being continued. 
A dormancy experiment with barleys was conducted in 1920 and 
1921. Eleven varieties of barley were sown at intervals of two weeks 
from autumn until late spring to determine after what date of sowing 
in spring a winter variety could not develop normally and produce 
heads in the same season. Notes on the first heading of all sowings 
{ -firta ii 
K* *m 
jjf^:^%?: " -' 
• 
f 
mm 
Fig. 5. — Harvesting the extensive barley nursery at the Plant Introduction Station, Chico, Calif., 
in 1920. 
were made to secure additional information on dormancy. These 
preliminary experiments show that winter varieties can not be safely 
sown after midwinter. 
Leading Varieties. 
COAST. 
Coast is the most important barley in the Sacramento Valley 
as well as in the entire Pacific coast area. It is a midseason, six- 
rowed, hulled variety with midtall strong straw and long stiff awns. 
It stands well after maturity and does not shatter easily. Its awns 
are strongly barbed, which is objectionable when the barley is cut 
for hay. Although the kernels are large, the awns tend to remain 
attached to the threshed grain, which often results in low bushel 
weights. Coast is best adapted to well-drained soils, where it grows 
vigorously and produces large yields under favorable conditions. 
