The Many Forms Of Barley For Ponds

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For such an age old remedy to keep ponds cleaner, barley straw has certainly evolved in a variety of ways.

Word on the street is that during the middle ages, a moat surrounding a particular castle was infested with a terrible algae bloom. (It’s good to know royalty is not immune from such things). Anyway by accident some lowly peasant accidentally dumped a load of barley straw in the moat, which we assume was intended to feed horses or something, and low and behold, it started clearing the algae up!

The King was pleased, but there’s no word on if the peasant was promoted to the official moat manager or not. I hope so.

So using barley for ponds is nothing new, but there are modern adaptions that are gaining interest with pond owners. And just to note, the people using these products are not crazy…they have history on their side!

Before discussing some of the various options in barley products I want to address something that came out of several university studies on the use of barley in ponds. Most of these showed some degree of effect in using dried barley bails to improve clarity and prohibit new growth in testing ponds. It didn’t always work well to retract existing issues of various kinds, however over the years, we’ve received feedback and testimonials if you will, that indicate some people have had success with barley in clearing a pond. We’ve received similar responses regarding lavender sprigs as well, and certainly we believe that the reports are true, it’s just that they don’t come with same level of scientific credibility that a university study might have.

So with all this in mind, it seems prudent to suggest that for the best results with barley, it’s probably best to try and add it to the pond prior to any degradation in pond clarity. If barley has been in the pond for a few weeks, then some decomposition of the straw will be underway and the various substances that are released from the decaying straw could begin to limit any new growth.

Under normal circumstances there really isn’t any negative or dangerous precautions to take with barley. Any pond will benefit from good aeration or at the least, good dissolved oxygen levels, and this may help barley work better too and it will most certainly help to protect fish from low oxygen counts.

Because of the popularity of barley’s use in ponds, manufacturers developed the straw out into other forms, including compacted barley pellets and liquid concentrates. It’s also been used or blended with beneficial bacteria and can work well in this combination. The bacteria helps reduce nutrients and organics in the water, and the barley can help play it’s role in restriction of new growth without any conflicts or contradictions.

In our experience, people have found good results with all of the forms mentioned above. The pellets and liquid may have to be added more frequently then the straw, but for some they are cleaner and more efficient to work with. I generally recommend all forms of barley for small ponds, and larger dried barley bails for large ponds, simply due to the cost being less for the actual straw.

In most cases you can expect around 3 to 4 months of usage out of a bail. Be sure that the actual straw is thoroughly dried and wrapped in nylon mesh to keep it together as it breaks down. After a few months time, the old bails should be pulled out and discarded and fresh one’s placed back in the pond. Dosage rates vary from about 3 to 6 30 pound bails per acre of water. (Note: we don’t carry large pond bails on our website but we can refer you to farms that grow and ship barley straw direct).

For the most part, barley for ponds represents a viable option to try when you’re wanting to improve the appearance of your pond. They’re certainly safer than most chemicals and they don’t tend to have any negative side effects which is also good. Compared to other treatments it is relatively low cost and in the case of the actual straw, it many only need to be added to the pond once or twice in a season.

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