Fodder Muddle

We've been sprouting barley for the cows and chickens for months and just when I think I have it figured out, everything changes.

The seeds had stopped sprouting well.  I noticed that the ones on the bottom of the bucket weren't sprouted while the ones on top were.    So we split each day's seeds into two buckets to keep the weight down.

But that didn't completely solve the problem.  As the temperature warmed over the spring, the fodder did better and better, until it got really hot.  Then the seeds stopped sprouting.  When we moved them indoors, which we keep under 80ºF, things got back on track.  It's a hassle, but the seeds are sprouting nicely now.

Things were okay for a while, then we got a new problem.  Mold.  After several weeks at 100ºF, mold had become a constant obstacle.  Some days the entire fodder crop was lost.  And it smells pretty bad too.

The easy solution would be to take the whole apparatus inside, which we'll have to do this winter anyway, but we are lazy and moving it will be a big project.  So we are experimenting with every other possibility.  A tarp was laid across the top of the greenhouse to give full shade.  We are doing two extra irrigations during the day to replenish the cool water.  A fan runs most of day, providing several degrees of evaporative cooling.  Finally, we're only growing the fodder to 7 days instead of 9, giving the mold less time to develop.

The results are mixed.  When the high stays below 95ºF, we're doing pretty good, but above 100ºF it's a problem.  The forecast for the next week is really hot, over 100ºF.  We should move it inside, but we're so close to some fall cooling, that I'm lazy.  We'll just muddle through until the weather is nice and the cows have thick, perfect fodder again.