Barley

Barley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare.

Barley has many uses. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods. It is used in soups and stews, and in barley bread of various cultures. Like wheat and rye, barley contains gluten which makes it an unsuitable grain for consumption by those with celiac disease.

In a 2007 ranking of cereal crops in the world, barley was fourth both in terms of quantity produced (136 million tons) and in area of cultivation (566,000 km²).

Etymology

The Old English word for 'barley' was bære, which traces back to Proto-Indo-European and is cognate to the Latin word farina "flour". The direct ancestor of modern English barley in Old English was the derived adjective bærlic, meaning "of barley". The underived word bære survives in the north of Scotland as bere, and refers to a specific strain of six-row barley grown there. The word barn, which originally meant barley-house, is also rooted in these words.

Domestication

Wild barley has a brittle spike; upon maturity, the spikelets separate, facilitating seed dispersal. Domesticated barley has non-shattering spikes, making it much easier to harvest the mature ears.

Two-row barley has a lower protein content than six-row barley and thus more fermentable sugar content. High protein barley is best suited for animal feed. Malting barley is usually lower protein ('low grain nitrogen', usually produced without a late fertilizer application) which shows more uniform germination, needs shorter steeping, and has less protein in the extract that can make beer cloudy. Two-row barley is traditionally used in English ale style beers. Six-row barley is common in some American lager style beers, especially when adjuncts such as corn and rice are used, whereas two-row malted summer barley is preferred for traditional German beers.

Hulless or "naked" barley

Hulless or "naked" barley (Hordeum vulgare L. var. nudum Hook. f.) is a form of domesticated barley with an easier to remove hull. Naked barley is an ancient food crop, but a new industry has developed around uses of selected hulless barley in order to increase the digestible energy of the grain, especially for swine and poultry. Hulless barley has been investigated for several potential new applications as whole grain, and for its value-added products. These include bran and flour for multiple food applications.

Classification

In traditional classifications of barley these morphological differences have led to different forms of barley being classified as different species. Under these classifications two-rowed barley with shattering spikes (wild barley) is classified as Hordeum spontaneum K.Koch. Two-rowed barley with non-shattering spikes is classified as H. distichum L., six-rowed barley with non-shattering spikes as H. vulgare L. (or H. hexastichum L.), and six-rowed with shattering spikes as H. agriocrithon Åberg.

The fact that these differences were driven by single-gene mutations, coupled with cytological and molecular evidence, has led most recent classifications to treat these forms as a single species, H. vulgare L. near the same time as einkorn and emmer wheat. Wild barley (H. vulgare ssp. spontaneum) ranges from North Africa and Crete in the west, to Tibet in the east.

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond argues that the availability of barley, along with other domesticable crops and animals, in southwestern Eurasia significantly contributed to the broad historical patterns that human history has followed over approximately the last 13,000 years; i.e., why Eurasian civilizations, as a whole, have survived and conquered others.

Barley beer was probably the first drink developed by Neolithic humans. Barley later on was used as currency. The practice was to dry the barley groats and roast them before preparing the porridge, according to Pliny the Elder's Natural History (xviii.72). This produces malt that soon ferments and becomes slightly alcoholic.

Pliny also noted barley was a special food of gladiators known as hordearii, "barley-eaters". However, by Roman times, he added that wheat had replaced barley as a staple. It is made into a flour product called tsampa that is still a staple in Tibet. The flour is roasted and mixed with butter and butter tea to form a stiff dough that is eaten in small balls.

In medieval Europe, bread made from barley and rye was peasant food, while wheat products were consumed by the upper classes.

Production

Barley was grown in about 100 countries worldwide in 2007. The world production in 1974 was 148,818,870 tonnes; since then, there has been a slight decline in the amount of barley produced worldwide.

Plant diseases

This plant is known or likely to be susceptible to barley mild mosaic bymovirus as well as bacterial blight. Barley can be susceptible to many diseases but plant breeders have been working hard to incorporate resistance. The devastation caused by any one disease will depend upon the susceptibility of the variety being grown and the environmental conditions during disease development. Serious diseases of barley include powdery mildew, caused by Blumeria graminis f.sp. hordei, Leaf Scald, caused by Rhynchosporium secalis, Barley rust, caused by Puccinia hordei, and various diseases caused by Cochliobolus sativus. Fusarium species cause Head Blight (Am. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium_ear_blight)

Uses

Algicide

Barley straw, in England, is placed in mesh bags and floated in fish ponds or water gardens to help reduce algal growth without harming pond plants and animals. Barley straw has not been approved by the EPA for use as a pesticide and its effectiveness as an algicide in ponds has produced mixed results during university testing in the US and the UK.

Animal feed

Half of the United States' barley production is used as an animal feed. Barley is an important feed grain in many areas of the world not typically suited for maize production, especially in northern climates - for example, northern and eastern Europe. Barley is the principal feed grain in Canada, Europe, and in the northern United States. A finishing diet of barley is one of the defining characteristics of Western Canadian beef used in marketing campaigns.

Alcoholic beverages

A large part of the remainder is used for malting, for which barley is the best suited grain. It is a key ingredient in beer and whisky production. Two-row barley is traditionally used in German and English beers. Six-row barley was traditionally used in US beers, but both varieties are in common usage now. Distilled from green beer, whisky has been made primarily from barley in Ireland and Scotland, while other countries have utilized more diverse sources of alcohol; such as the more common corn, rye and wheat in the USA. In the USA, a grain type may be identified on a whisky label if that type of grain constitutes 51% or more of the ingredients and certain other conditions are satisfied.

Non-alcoholic drinks such as barley water and barley tea (called mugicha in Japan) have been made by boiling barley in water. Barley wine was an alcoholic drink in the 18th century. It was prepared by boiling barley in water, then mixing the barley water with white wine and other ingredients like borage, lemon and sugar. In the 19th century a different barley wine was made prepared from recipes of ancient Greek origin. According to a recent study, eating whole grain barley can regulate blood sugar (i.e. reduce blood glucose response to a meal) for up to 10 hours after consumption compared to white or even whole-grain wheat, which has a similar glycemic index. The effect was attributed to colonic fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates. Barley can also be used as a coffee substitute.

Hulled barley (or covered barley) is eaten after removing the inedible, fibrous outer hull. Once removed, it is called dehulled barley (or pot barley or scotch barley). Considered a whole grain, dehulled barley still has its bran and germ making it a nutritious and popular health food. Pearl barley (or pearled barley) is dehulled barley which has been steam processed further to remove the bran. With a long history of cultivation in the Middle East, barley is used in a wide range of traditional Assyrian, Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Assyrian foodstuffs including kashkak, kashk and murri. Barley soup is traditionally eaten during Ramadan in Saudi Arabia. It is also used in soups and stews in Eastern Europe. In Africa, where it is a traditional food plant, it has the potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare.

The six row variety bere is cultivated in Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and the Western Isles in the Scottish Highlands and islands. The grain is used to make beremeal, used locally in bread, biscuits, and the traditional beremeal bannock.

Measurement

Barley grains were used for measurement in England, there being 3 or 4 barleycorns to the inch and 4 or 5 poppy seeds to the barleycorn. The statute definition of an inch was 3 barleycorns, although by the 19th century this had been superseded by standard inch measures. This unit still persists in the shoe sizes which are used in Britain and the USA.

The barleycorn was known as arpa in Turkish, and the feudal system in Turkey employed the term Arpalik, or "barley-money", to refer to a second allowance made to officials to offset the costs of fodder for their horses.

Ornamental

A new stabilized variegated variety of Hordeum vulgare, billed as Hordeum vulgare varigate, has been introduced for cultivation as an ornamental and pot plant for pet cats to nibble on.

Research

The chlorophyll binding a/b protein is missing in albostrains of barley, and they have been used to study plastid development in plants. Researching white streaked strains, plant scientists have gained a greater understanding of reporter gene expression in the production of chloroplast proteins.

Cultural significance

In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad prescribed barley (Talbina) for seven diseases. It was also said to soothe and calm the bowels. Avicenna in his 11th century work The Canon of Medicine wrote of the healing effects of barley water, soup and broth for fevers. Additionally, barley can be roasted and turned into roasted barley tea, a popular Asian drink.

In English folklore, The figure of John Barleycorn in the folksong of the same name is a personification of barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death, and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting. He may be related to older pagan gods such as Mímir or Kvasir.

See also

Maris Otter

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

External links

Crop Wild Relatives Gap Analysis Portal reliable information source on where and what to conserve ex-situ, regarding Hordeum genepool

A Brief History of Barley Foods

Cooking with barley and barley recipes

Genetically modified barley - No effects on beneficial fungi Results of the safety research

Barley from NutritionData

Nutritive value of barley

Medical Research on Barley Benefits

The National Barley Foods Council (NBFC) home page.

Category:Forages Category:Phytoremediation plants