Just wondering if anyone knows how to harvest viable seeds from this grass. I had to pay over $50 dollars for 3.5 grams of seeds. Not sure if anyone knows how much that is, but, its about enough to seed a couple of 3 gallon pots. Greed has worked its way into the grass seed market also I guess. I dont see how Phalaris Brachys..... is a viable option when you cant grow enough to even do a meager extraction.

I was wondering does anyone know if the buds or flowers on this grass will produce viable seeds? do they need to be pollinated first? How do I harvest them? Would cutting the grass get me more floweres/seeds?

Ice house, this is why I am going with AQ1..people are just ripping off the rest of us IMO with the prices for brachys seeds...at least with AQ1 it produces runners, is periennal and grows faster..and it still has a really decent alkaloid profile..Next week I am ordering AQ1, the aquatica var australia strain, some beg medicine and both yugo and turkey red. From there I will try to source a bulk ammount of brachys for cheap but I have not seen it yet..my brachys is going to seed right now as well, but I mean it does not look like I will get even the ammount of seed I origionally bought from the plants.

Your grass looks healthy though..are you giving it full sun? My brachys is only like half that tall, some of it even shorter..I have had it in full sun most of the time but have realized it seems to grow faster and prefer the shade..it gets yellower in the sun also and gets a very deep green in the shade..

They wind pollinate. Once they've flowered, the best way to hrvest is to go out with a bol every cope of days and bang the seed head over it.
Brachystasis don't hold onto their seeds so alterntively just leave them alone to self-seed the area for next year.

I recently purchased several packs of seeds from a french supplier, B & T World Seeds. Among them I got a pack of P. Brachystachys, one gram of seeds for 6 euros. Sounds pretty reasonable looking at the prices mentioned here. Unless the alkaloid concentration of the strain I got happens to be very inferior to strains provided by ethnobotanical suppliers...



Phalaris grass is easily found in the wild where I live. It's not a picky plant with soil, and it will keep propagating annually no problem if you leave it alone. Pollination techniques should only be necessary in small pot growings or indoors. And seed will be mostly viable as long as it's not old.

I found a report about industrial growing of Phalaris grass, and they suggest an ideal density of around 500 plants per square meter. Doing the math, and assuming an optimal 80% germination rate (achievable with seeds properly harvested from the most recent batch, I guess) and a reasonable adjustment for losses, they come up with 5,9 grams of seed per square meter of soil.

Fourthripley's suggestions for harvesting agree with what I've read.

^they are referring to a clump of little pot of grass when they say "500 plants"..500 little clumps of grass, sinse most species spread via runners, unlike brachys. 500 little brachy seeds wont do much.

B&T is a rip off for brachys like the other vendors..to get enough to go bulk would be $$. Compare that to grass seed a farmer would use..brachys is not a specific cultivar strain, it is seeds so it should be cheap like farmers buy big bulk supplies of seed.

500 Brachy seeds is nothing. I need a good 100lbs to plant my field.

@jamie- my grass does grow rather long and it is in direct sunlight. we gotta talk about doing a trade and me getting some AQ1. I have allot of Terra Firma to plant.

I know.

As far as market prices are concerned, P. Canariensis would be the deal breaker here. We need more research with bird seed. A kilo of organically grown canariensis seed can be bought here for 6 euros. I will be finding out this summer.