Experimental quinoa planting.

[hoodat]

These are quinoa plants I am growing as an experiment. If they do well I should get enough seeds for a real planting. They are the Colorado variety and are supposed to do best at high elevations but mine seem to be doing nicely here in San Diego. They are only 2 months since planting the seeds and are already heading up nicely. No sign of bugs or disease.

 

[Mickey328]

Wow, they look great! Do you have specific plans for the "crop"? I'd given some thought to trying this but not sure if the space required would be worth it for the return.

 

[hoodat]

Wow, they look great! Do you have specific plans for the "crop"? I'd given some thought to trying this but not sure if the space required would be worth it for the return.

No specific plans beyond saving seed for a Fall planting. What the return is for the space required is one of the things I'm hoping to find out. I'll post the results. I understand the leaves are good but I don't plan to harvest any this season. I'll just let them do their thing and see what the results are. I understand there is a variety called Sea Level Quinoa that is supposed to do better at low altitudes but if these do well I won't need it. Quinoa will expand my Fall and Winter crop varieties if it works out. I always have spare garden space in Winter.
I'll also be growing the grain amaranth this year. It does better in warm weather.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Do you know if we can feed our rabbits on Quinoa and Amaranth? I don't know anything at all about these. Do you know if I could plant a field of either of these (or both) and harvest, dry, and bale it? The price of pellets is getting totally out of control.

 

[bj taylor]

i am interested in raising rabbits - but i don't want to get into dealing w/grain prices. i want to learn how to grow crops/grains that can be used for small livestock. i'm betting it would require a pretty specific combination - but once figured out, might be a great thing. quinoa might be one of those. san diego probably has some climactic similarities to Texas. i look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[Mickey328]

Quinoa and amaranth are both very high in protein so can go to chickens and rabbits. What I'm wondering is what kind of seed harvest will come from the planting; can't wait to see Hoodat's results.

I feed grains to both our chickens and bunnies. My basic mix is 4 parts barley, 4 parts oats, 1 part BOSS and 1 part beet pulp. Neither of 'em will eat the beet pulp so that'll be left out of the mix next time around; think I'll substitute wheat for it in the next mix.

All the critters get fresh greens as available and the bunnies get a couple good handfuls of alfalfa a day as well as unlimited grass hay. They also have access to a hunk of mineral/salt block that's actually formulated for horses, but has most of the same stuff that the smaller, more expensive spools have. The chickens get as much extra protein as we can scrounge for 'em for both feather and egg production: cooked dried beans, meat scraps of all kinds, yogurt, cheese...and when we find a cracked egg I scramble that up for them as well. They also get cracked corn; I don't feed it to the rabbits, so the chickens get it separate...I treat it like scratch and just scatter it so they have something to do.

 

[hoodat]

Do you know if we can feed our rabbits on Quinoa and Amaranth? I don't know anything at all about these. Do you know if I could plant a field of either of these (or both) and harvest, dry, and bale it? The price of pellets is getting totally out of control.

For rabbits you would do better to grow either red clover or alfalfa. Both dry up into very high protein hay. Protein is the priciest part of a rabbits diet. You might also look into cowpeas which are used as animal fodder in Africa. All three of those will give you three cuttings per year in most parts of the country. Cowpeas are especialy good in hot dry areas.
Here is a link to Feedipedia, an online encyclopedia of fodder plants that you may find useful.
http://www.feedipedia.org/

 

[April Manier]

I did Quinoa a couple of years ago. We had water issues and it was stunted. Still, each one yielded more than I expected. By the looks of it you will have a good harvest.

I am growing some this year for the purpose of chicken food. My goal is to plant one bed in the side field (one bed is 5'x250') with a bunch of things I've selected for chicken food. I'm just going to cut the heads of everything when ready, throw tarps under my greenhouse tables, and dry them out. After they are dry I'll do a quick threshing, feed he chaff to the goats I hope to have by then, and throw my "scratch" in a garbage can with lid.

Not too sure about doing quinoa for myself. The cleaning seems prohibitive. Are you going to process this at all Hoodat, or just let it self sow?

 

[897tgigvib]

Hoodat, that's the same variety I grew last season. It is a very forgiving variety. If you have the same selection, you'll get puffy flower heads in something like 3 colors with some mingle colored. Yellow, orange, and red. Some yellows will shade to greenish some.

Only real pest is the vole mice got some when they were little before I trapped them.

I actually don't know if the saponin needs to be washed off for the chickens and rabbits. Probably a good idea.

 

[hoodat]

Quinoa has a coating of saponin (vegetable soap) which the plant uses to keep wild birds from eating it. The saponin washes off quite easly but until it is washed many animals will not eat it. The quinoa you buy at the store has already had the saponin washed off at the processor and then the grain is redried for storage. Washing causes the seeds to start germinating and then the germination is interrupted by the drying. That's why most quinoa bought at the store does not sprout well. You have to plant unwashed seeds.