It's been raining since last weekend and the forecast says that the rain will continue this weekend too. I am worried about the quality of barley that are about to be harvested around the area.
Usually barley seeds are sown at the end of November and the germs grow tall throughout the cold winter. When spring comes, barley-ears emerge and mature. Now it's supposed to be the time when the maturation is complete with dry weather, but the growth was slower this year, resulting in delay of harvest. And it's going to be the rainy season too. Barley should be dry before harvest because they must be hard and contain less moisture, for storage, than they usually do. Also the rain will soften and blacken the barley, which, makes it hard to process, and bad-looking respectively.
There's nothing we can do about this though; it's the force of nature. We can't change the weather pattern unlike other industries such as IC tip factories, where they can control temperature, humidity, everything. And the barley fields are so huge that for sure the barley characteristics will vary among the grains that was grown in the same field. There are too many factors that influence the quality of the crop.
Therefore, when we ask farmers for detailed data of each growing stage, or exact estimate of this year's production, it feels nonsense. It's so changeable and not uniform so it's almost impossible to make a general statement. We ask those as a scientist, but calculations and data-analysis are not sufficient to understand agriculture. There is a range of uncertainty because it greatly depends on nature.
The researchers asked the definition of "maturation", about the indicator of that stage or the accurate way of estimating the date. However, the growers said that there was no exact way of defining maturation. It occurs to their crop when the ears slightly tilt due to its own weight, and you would notice it if you watch the barley you are growing every day. It's the only way to tell maturation is going on.
