[Plant-biology] Seeking variations of alder for breeding it as a grain crop

[Michael Bell]

Barbara

"PNW" = "Pacific North west"?

Alnus incana and glutinosa has thin "rims", I suppose you could call 
them "wings". The whole thing has to be bred bigger, but the wing may 
not come off as a single piece which can be separated by winnowing and 
seiving methods. That may not matter. I propose grinding/milling in 
usual way. Some people pay more for "Brown bread"

I know there is a long way to go, and many obstacles be overcome, but 
now that I have a highly productive variety, all that I need now is 
bigger seeds, and alder can "take off". After that there will be 
continual improvement, far beyond my time. Wheat has been in 
cultivation for 10 000 years and it is still being worked on.

Michael

In message <mailman.749.1249666518.21502.plantbio from net.bio.net>
          Barbara Bliss <bjbliss from gmail.com> wrote:

> Michael Bell:

> Alnus rubra is the PNW coastal upland N-fixing pioneer ("weed") species. The
> seed has wings. To use it as a grain, you'd need to get that off (Bradley
> Sherman used the sprouts, not the grain). Has anybody done that? another
> important thing to know will be how long seeds remain viable, and, if they
> are to be marketed as a food, how long they remain of nutritive value.
> Getting the germplasm will be free and easy; proving it is worth doing will
> be trickier. A lot has been done to select for herbs (corn, rice) with
> highly nutritive endosperm already, and each improvement is time consuming
> and costly.

> The Populus trichocarpa genome has been sequenced, however, and it is a
> close relative of Alnus, so could prove helpful.

> bb

> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 12:30 AM, Bradley K. Sherman <bks from panix.com> wrote:

>> Barbara Bliss  <bjbliss from gmail.com> wrote:
>>>Does Alnus have any food value? How would one prepare it?
>>>
>>
>> http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/survival/food/saldercatkins/index.html
>>
>>    --bks
>>
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