I’m growing some chia in Southeast Kentucky that I don’t expect to make it to seed due to the climate. I’m using it for spinach, and maybe tea.
Today I was browsing the University of Kentucky website for their Center for Crop Diversification. I look at it from time to time. I read that they helped develop a variety that produces seed in this climate: Chia | Center for Crop Diversification
I’m not clear that it is perennial, but I am posting in this thread because chia has already been mentioned. There is a company, Hartland Chia, that is growing UK’s variety for seed and they’re selling it in grocery quantities. For example: https://amzn.to/45Hlirs
I’ve already ordered a pack, although it will be 2024 before I have a chance to try it. I guess I can at least do a germination test this season though.
Awesome!! Great to know about that chia source - - I’ll have to check that out
At the time I wrote this, I listed chia because it was my understanding that, like okra, it could be grown as a perennial in its native range. Either way, maybe it’s worth devoting a thread to cherishing chia
Last year we grew some good quality grocery chia that we started in summer - - it grew very easily but it didn’t flower before a frost. This year we did the same in shade with an apparently even better quality chia. It’s done well too, though it hasn’t flowered yet either.
You know what has flowered? Plants from the chia I planted maybe as long as a month later that I got from @julia.dakin and/or the seed train. As I understand it, both are from a Raramuri chia that Joseph stewarded for a couple years.
The Wikipedia article describes it as an annual, but I would not assume this is one of the more reliable botanical articles without investigating it a little more.
I too am growing grocery store chia for spinach purposes and it’s doing well, with no signs of flowering though. I don’t know much at all about chia. I would be glad to learn more
They offer the chia for sale on their website to people in the UK. While I’ve seen some other Hodmedod products offered for sale to the USA, this chia doesn’t seem to be exported here.
There is also a day-neutral Chia variety available here in Switzerland. The seeds themselves seem to be not available, since they are exclusively marketed through the cooperative that has bred the variety (only farmers of this cooperative can plant it), but seeds for eating are sold in their webshop, but I don’t know if they ship abroad.
Normally I feel I would be against some few people hoarding these seeds, but since it is a small regional cooperative with about 70 involved farmers and just one person that does the administration etc. I feel I understand them. They are investing time and money into finding new crops that work in their region, of course they don’t want to loose their innovation and the exclusivity others. Bit since I would plant these seeds mostly as a novelty for myself without marketing them, I feel fine with planting them.
Salvia is a huge genus with a lot of hybridisation potential. Chia is doing well for me after I mixed two different coloured seed forms which seemed to cross spontaneously. Somewhere down my long to do list is crossing this population with other weed/seedy salvias. The chromosome numbers in the genus are all over the place (some botanists want to split it into a bunch of genera based on this and its huge distribution). Hand crossing is pretty simple with practice, but you only get four seed maximum per cross.
Oh . I don’t think it’s Raramuri then. I just know it’s chia Joseph took care of it for a couple seasons and it’s able to fruit in a short season. I thought I could find the post where he mentioned the variety by searching for “not my chia”, but didn’t manage to turn it up. It looks just like the other chia I’m growing, just smaller and flowering. I can snap a picture if of interest.
It is fiddly (handling many small flowers at awkward heights is difficult on the body). Im about to hand cross some Brassica carinata that I managed to line up the flowering on strains with very different maturity time. Never hand crossed brassicas before, but it usually just takes a few days of fiddling and breaking flowers to get a feel for how much abuse they can take and still set seed).
I have hand crossed some ornamental Salvias with much larger flowers before and generated some beautiful hybrids. Chia flowers are minute by comparison, but the principles are the same. Plus you only need a dozen or so viable seed to grow out carefully and found a whole new lineage.
Pollen is shed within a few hours of sunrise under greenhouse conditions. Early morning pollen transfer from plants used as males to spikes of designated female plants over several days to 2 weeks has resulted in successful crosses, with ~10 % of seed from a spike used in crosses being non-selfed (crossed) seed (personal observations). Making chia crosses is considerably easier when dominant phenotypic markers are available. Cahill and Provance (2002) used stem striation/pigmentation as a dominant marker. Breeding efforts at the University of Kentucky have used flower color as a dominant marker.
By using white-flowered plants as females in crosses with blue- or purple-flowered plants as males, hybrid plants can be distinguished from self-pollinated young seedlings. Blue flowering plants produce pigmented hypocotyls in the early seedling stage of growth in bright light (1–3 weeks after germination), while white-flowering self-pollinated seedlings from the attempted cross exhibit only light green hypocotyls. Alternatively, seed from attempted crosses can be grown to flowering stage, and blue-flowering plants would be actual hybrids, while white-flowering plants would be selfed (maternal parent) progeny.
In general, the domesticated chia variety “Pinta” now dominates cultivation (Cahill 2005), with a few other domesticated populations or selections being grown; for example, Sahi Alba 911, Sahi Alba 912, and Sahi Alba 914 are three white seed lines developed by mass selection. Omega-3 Chia, Inc. has plant variety protection for a variety (“Omega-3”) developed in Florida, obtained through mass selection from a mixed population/landrace, likely “Pinta.”
Salvia hispanica L. is a self-pollinating plant, generally setting seed at high frequency in the absence of insects (greenhouse or mesh-covered inflorescences). Hernández-Gómez et al.(2008) found much higher levels of outcrossing (over 22 %) in cultivated chia, than in wild chia (<2 %) in field studies in Mexico. Cahill (2004) reported a much lower outcrossing rate of 0.24 % in his field studies in California using a wild and domesticated line. In Kentucky over three growing seasons, outcrossing in white-flowered chia plants surrounded by blue-flowered chia lines was in the 3–8 % range. Many insects are attracted to chia flowers, and little outcrossing has been observed under greenhouse conditions, so it is likely that entomophily is responsible for transferring pollen rather than wind. Some South American chia growers report better chia crop yields when chia is grown in areas with healthy bee populations.
Cahill and Ehdaie (2005) investigated the inheritance of seed mass in chia. They reported a 16 % increase in seed mass following one cycle of selection, but chia seed mass between wild and domesticated chia lines does not differ as much as that of other oilseed species in Lamiaceae (particularly Perilla frutescens Britt.).
I have planted four kinds of chia seeds from different stores: and one is not day-length sensitive, much smaller though than the others but ready to harvest. If anyone wants seeds for that please PM me.
I would love to find a chia strain that is not flowering too late, but still that much bigger than the strain I got…
…And by the way, talking about small grains: just nearby I tried 2 strains of eleusine coracana (nitrogen fixing cereal with a huge root system): one is nearly ready to harvest and the other just flowering. I love this plant!
Chia Seeds (Salvia hispanica) is in the Sage Genus.
Does that mean it can hybridize with other Salvia spp. like Sage?
Or are Sage in a different Subgenus and aren’t compatible with Chia despite being in the same genus?
Can’t you just use Grocery Store Chia Seeds? It’s what I used, or do their seeds also contain valuable genetic diversity for chia?
Very interesting you bring that up, I’ve seen on Phylogenic Trees that Chia and Sage despite being in the same Salvia genus appear to belong to different subgenera therefore can’t Cross. Of course they are serving suggestions but it’s still a barrier to cross.
Salvia officinalis is just one species (Rosemary was recently absorbed into the Salvia genus too according to some). That only leaves a few hundred other species to try crossing with Chia. And has anyone actually tried crossing Chia with S. officinalis? I am pretty sure the answer would be “not yet”.
The grocery store variety I’m currently growing now shows no signs it will produce seed at my latitude. I didn’t buy it with the intention of using it for seed, but I’m glad it was viable and gave me a clue that chia would grow well here.
From what I can tell, just about anything you can buy at a grocery store today in the United States will be day length sensitive, and will have been grown substantially closer to the equator than me.
I plan to continue to never water or fertilize them. The farm here may be a little too happy of an environment for them though, they have done about the best of any annual I have growing this year. (Why I got so interested!)
However there should be some dryness this coming month =worse than they’ve had so far this year. Maybe that will do it.
I will keep from harvesting at least a few plants in case they decide they want to get stressed and become a part of this project. I’d really rather start with this population that has done so well than to start over, I would be thrilled if I could induce some flowering.
I’m in the native territory of chia, so it’s a sprawling perennial for me (I’ve got 2 in my front yard, plus two other closely-related salvias). Average annual rainfall is 15” a year, almost entirely in October-April.
. I don’t think it’s Raramuri then. I just know it’s chia Joseph took care of it for a couple seasons and it’s able to fruit in a short season. I thought I could find the post where he mentioned the variety by searching for “not my chia”, but didn’t manage to turn it up. It looks just like the other chia I’m growing, just smaller and flowering. I can snap a picture if of interest.
It does seem reasonable that my chia is doing fine without any irrigation 