No. 0318 · Hordeum vulgare var. nudum
Silk Hull Barley
- Crop
- Grain
- Climate
- Cold
- Season
- Spring
- Origin
- Ladakh, India
At risk, kept by 4 growers
No. 0318The variety
A naked barley from the high valleys of Ladakh whose grains thresh free of their husks, roasted and ground for tsampa.
Grows best inHigh altitude, cold nights and strong sun
Seed passport
Perennial Seed Library · Season 2026
- Origin
- Ladakh, India
- First documented
- 1940
- Days to maturity
- 90 to 100 days
- Height
- 70 to 90 cm
- Hardiness
- Hardy to light frost at every stage
- Sun
- Full sun
- Spacing
- Broadcast or drilled thinly
- Flavor notes
- Toasty and sweet when roasted
No. 0318Growth timeline
From sowing to saving seed.
Stage 01 of 06
No. 0318Story
The story of Silk Hull Barley
Naked barleys shed their husks at threshing, so the grain can be roasted and eaten without milling. Silk Hull is grown at more than 3,500 meters in Ladakh, sown when the snow retreats and harvested before it returns, in a season of barely three months.
Its pale, silky grains are roasted and ground into tsampa, the staple flour of the high Himalaya. Four growers in the network keep it, all at altitude, and its survival depends on them more than on any vault.
Grown by
2 growers this season
Marta Ilieva
Rila foothills, Bulgaria
Liesl Brunner
Valais, Switzerland
Lending list · Season 2026
Borrow this seed.
Members borrow up to twelve varieties a year. Seed is posted on the first Monday of the month in a hand-numbered paper packet, and all we ask in return is a little of your harvest and a few lines about how it grew.