Steven Buen Mozo

Maurice van der Molen wrote:
This is what I found out:

Sepp's mysterious rye is the species 'Secale multicaule Kühn et al. 1974'. Taxonomically this is not correct and derives from Secale cereale var. multicaule Metzg. ex Alef., Landw. Fl.: 338 (1866).
This is nowadays not an accepted name. It is simply called Secale cereale but that's also stupid in my opinion because that's the name for all ordinairy rye species. So Joseph Holzer was right when he said "it´s a variety of Secale cereale"
(source: http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/namedetail.do;jsessionid=64AB69A9C7189F65C36B948D223B4489?name_id=471243)
The common use though is Secale cereale var. multicaule

In Sepp Holzer's Permaculture (the dutch translation I'm currently reading) there is a distinctive difference between Secale Multicaule and the Siberian Rye he obtained long ago. Both appear as different species in the planting lists.

In Belgium Secale Multicaule seed is commercially available at a local dealer here, selling it in 10kg (+/-22pound) bags, but still only one that I know of. Here it carries a name that literally translates "Bohemian Bushy Rye", and the description further adds: "Grain that is suited for marginal lands/first crop, possible to be grown on mountainous landscapes up to 1200m high. Slow growth with little to no seed production in the first year, produces copious amounts of biomass in following year(s). Very resistant to grazing, damage/production loss through grazing is neglectable"
Maybe I should go back to their shop and inquire where it exactly comes from...

Hi, Andrew, just a few considerations/ideas on cold temperatures that might help you...

I have an underground rainwater harvesting tank for 8 years now, it never freezes, even a few years back when we hit -18°C a couple of times, the barrel, nor the pump line froze.
It did freeze in the first winter I lived here, but the pump line was left uncovered at that time, the second winter it was covered with no more than 20cm of soil and it didn't freeze.

Keeping the worm-compost tank under ground and having warm liquids coming in regularly will keep the tank from freezing, covering the lid with 20-50cm of soil will help. You might want to wrap the plastic barrel sticking out with straw as an insulation material, to keep it from cooling down too much from the coldest winter frosts.
The pump line as well should be ideally 50cm underground.
If you use a reed field/basin to work as a green filter, you could design it so you can cover it in winter with arches and create a poly tunnel, to keep the reeds from freezing over. A little bit of sun regularly would do to heat up the tunnel structure. I'm not sure how much water you'd be processing a day, but in worst case you could also add a 1000l/2000l buffer in the coldest of winter so you can wait out the hardest frosts for a week or so.

One thing to consider is since you're close to a stream ground water will probably be relatively high. If your compost/worm tank has too much air, the ground water will undoubtedly push your tank out of the ground, so you will need to keep it well filled.

Good luck,
Steven