Grain Domestication Project -- Finally finished! (Rye Brome (B. secalinus))

I've been working on a grain domestication project for the past few years -- the most recent update was here from a year or two ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QX3dlqrwtM
I'm proud to say that I finally have finally got it to be where I wanted it to be. It tastes pretty good. You can cook it like rice (boils to doneness in around 45 minutes), but it's better nixtamalized like corn. It's a winter grain like winter wheat (though I have never acutally grown wheat since I don't eat it). You plant it in late summer-early fall here and it's ready in late june or early july. It's not suceptible to ergot, though, which is important in my wet climate. And it's super cold-tolerant too, so that's nice.
I only have a handful of seeds this year since I've been culling very, very hard. 95% or so of seeds didn't make it each generation. That's what was needed apparently.
Also, I lost my seeds last year, but I had enough hiding in the soil that I was only set back a little bit (very lucky for me).
I have no idea what species of grass it is (maybe a brome?), but I tried 20 different kinds of grass and this is the only one that I got domesticated into something well-behaved. What I think is oval-headed sedge is second place, but I'd probably need another 10 years to get it to be worth growing for me, and I'm not sure that's worth it. It's got even smaller, fiddlier seeds and shatters even more easily, so it would be harder, though the flavor is a bit better and it doesn't have a hull, which is convenient, so there are some pros and cons.
But, the lesson here is that I was able to roughly 4x the size of the seeds and improve other characteristics as well in around 5 years time just with selection. It's a very powerful tool.

Do you think the plant is perennial?

[quote=B Beeson]Do you think the plant is perennial? [/quote]

No, it dies as it produces seed.

That does look like brome—rye brome. I’ve been growing rye brome for a few years now. It looks similar to yours, but bigger than the wild sort and without awls. I was very surprised because the plant was obviously not planted, yet was a non-shattering, large-seeded grain. I brought two heads home and planted them all over. Apparently they were cultivated as a grain in ancient Europe, but did not persist in agriculture. They have tight hulls, which most wheat, rye, and certain oats do not. I’ve found them very resilient, a promising grain plant. It’s nice to hear that we have both rediscovered this ancient plant independently!

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Bromus+secalinus&ia=images&iax=images

This is genuinely fascinating. How many generations did it take before you had consistent non-shattering seed heads? That's usually the hardest thing to select for because you only notice the ones that didn't shatter, so progress feels invisible for a while. Nixtamalizing it like corn is an interesting choice too, I wouldn't have thought to try that with a brome.

[quote=Joao Winckler]This is genuinely fascinating. How many generations did it take before you had consistent non-shattering seed heads? That's usually the hardest thing to select for because you only notice the ones that didn't shatter, so progress feels invisible for a while. Nixtamalizing it like corn is an interesting choice too, I wouldn't have thought to try that with a brome.[/quote]

They were non-shattering to begin with. They stay on the plant for around a month on average in nature.

M Ljin wrote:That does look like brome—rye brome. I’ve been growing rye brome for a few years now. It looks similar to yours, but bigger than the wild sort and without awls. I was very surprised because the plant was obviously not planted, yet was a non-shattering, large-seeded grain. I brought two heads home and planted them all over. Apparently they were cultivated as a grain in ancient Europe, but did not persist in agriculture. They have tight hulls, which most wheat, rye, and certain oats do not. I’ve found them very resilient, a promising grain plant. It’s nice to hear that we have both rediscovered this ancient plant independently!

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Bromus+secalinus&ia=images&iax=images

That's pretty cool. I didn't think that species was native to here in West Virginia, but that might be what it is anyway.