It is widespread enough that the Calscape page indicates 2.4 to 80.9 inches of rainfall, plus this note about propagation:
For propagating by seed: No general recommendation possible as several ecotypes involved. Dry storage at 155°P for 6 mos.; then 1 mo. stratification gives 45-95% germination on seeds from five out of ten locations (Capon et al. 1978). Dry storage at 155°P for 1 wk. for desert-collected seeds gives good results (Capon and Van Asdall 1970). For specific treatments of seeds from 19 locations, see Capon and Brecht 1970. Addition of a small amount of charate over the sown seeds significantly improves germination (Keeley and Keeley 1982).
It is also reported to cross readily with many other similar-appearing sages with overlapping or near ranges, such as Cleveland sage and Black sage.
Some organizations that may be useful to you for knowledge or seeds are California Botanical Gardens, Native Seeds Search, and Theodore Payne Foundation.
Just to mention: the non-day lenth sensitive Chia I bought from the grocery store and have been harvesting last week is called “Oruro” (https://www.chiadefrance.org/agriculture). It has been bred in France and it is a short plant.
With frost possible any time now, flower buds are just starting to form. I can’t imagine any way that these will make seed in time, but I am still excited about growing another variety next year!
Is the common name “chia” used for several of the salvias? I ask because that is clearly in the family but the leaves don’t at all resemble the chaparral plant I refer to as “chia”. I’m used to a thicker, grayish leaf.
I have seen a couple of sources that report Salvia hispanica as the most common chia species in commercial agriculture, and that S. columbariae, S. polystachya, and S. tiliifolia are also referred to as chia.
You are probably seeing the Californian C. columbariae as chia, though many minor Salvia species have edible seeds. Apparently columbariae can be crossed with the more common commercial chia species (polystachya and tilifolia). Maybe you can be our go to person to introduce genetics from this wild species into the more domesticated forms? Salvia flowers are a little fiddly, but not the worst to do hand crossing with.
Have you tried bagging the plants? Somehow Blocking the sun from them to trick the plants into thinking short days have arrive so now it has to form seeds? Might legit help get seeds to mature in time.
I’m sure if you prune your chia plants low, you could cover them fully with a dark trap to block out all sun for a day which should trigger flowering.
I have been haphazard with my chia this year. At the beginning of the season I planted both the day sensitive chia from last year and new reputedly day neutral seed that I believed could do better.
The early plantings did not do well.
Later in the season I did not plant chia in an organized way, but sometimes put out a little of the new seed only when I was putting out transplants.
The result is I have small chia plants dotted here and there throughout my beds. I noticed that some have already flowered a couple of weeks ago. I’ve noticed some tiny plants flowering already, while larger ones continue vegetative growth.
Ask the season continues I’m going to try to identify some of the strongest individuals in hopes of collecting new seed. At the least I can confirm that this variety has a totally different pattern with regard to flowering. Which is great!
I BET you this is because the tiny ones are being shaded by the bigger vegetative ones thus for the smaller ones, they think the end of growing season is coming sooner.
Plus Those chia flowers look very blue!? WHOA! Amazing, are they truly blue or just lighting angle making purple look blue?
Interesting, maybe it’s both at play here (Light levels it’s experiencing + It’s genetics).
I hope you are able to collect some new seeds!
Just curious, have you tried the leaves? Do they taste any good or better? Heard people used them as salad toppings but I’m still not 100% how edible they are (I assume they are probably the safest salvia to eat compared to sage & rosemary which you only want to eat a few).
To first respond to a question, leaves from the chia that I’m growing this year seem a bit less fibrous, but for both varieties, I feel like there is more potential for an herbal tea than a potherb spinach. What time growing doesn’t seem to have any potential for raw salad use.
I’m glad to already be seeing mature seeds on some of the plants that flowered at an early stage of development.
The impression that the plant gives is quite different to last years day length sensitive variety. I think this impression of significant difference is probably simply that last year’s plants put all their energy into vegetative growth almost the whole season.
The new variety produces less seed in marginal conditions and more seed in better soil and environmental situations. That seems like a positive thing for me, and I can also now imagine chia as self-seeding here. Not that I have any evidence that it will be!
I can’t yet say to what extent that this variety will need to be harvested intermittently. I’ve seen that poor conditions can cause early flowering and fruit, but I’m not growing on a large enough scale here yet to know how common that might happen. For a homestead scale garden like mine, I could live with some variation.
I could share some non photoperiodic chia seeds for those needing. From this year’s harvest: Sown in may they flower around end july, harvest end of august approx in my place… when all those store-bought I have sown makes giant plants (2m high) but still not flowering, when our first frost should happen within days
