This hybrid crop is on the rise. Pardon the lame pun, but this crop took the most recent World Agri-tech Summit by storm. Now, Tritordeum is a hybrid crop between durum wheat and Hordeum Chilense, a type of wild barley. 

There are a few quantitative properties that make tritordeum particularly appealing. First, it has less gluten than wheat does on top of having more fiber, more oleic acid, and more lutein. Secondly, the crop grows successfully in hot, dry climates, even thriving in these types of places, so it does not need as much water. These features are just that: features rather than happenstance. 

Development of the grain grew out of projects from the 1970s. Whereas most projects on crop hybridization at the time centered around increasing crop yield by any means necessary, tritordeum grew out of a concern for creating more resilient crops. Originating at the Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge, the project was guided by one Dr. Antonio Brown, who was a postdoc at the time following his PhD work at the University of Cordoba. Viable progeny “sprung” out of the project, and thus the Tritordeum Breeding Project was born. 

Fast forward to 2005, and the biotech spinoff Agrasys started making moves to acquire the exclusive rights to expertise provided by Dr. Brown, who was a part of Agrasys. By 2006, they were successful, and they began to expand the breeding program with eyes on long-term developments, such lines that are more suited to northern climates. Though Agrasys was acquired by Vivagran in 2021, the goal of expanding the reach of tritordeum continues (technically, there was a first attempt by Vivagran in 2020, followed by Agrasys being acquired by the biotech company Arcadia Biosciences, followed by the company divesting from Agrasys, successfully being acquired by Vivagran afterwards).  

According to people who have used the flour made from tritordeum, things made with the flour have a pleasant flavor on top of having a yellow hue. Surprisingly for a crop of this type, it still works nicely for baking and for distilling (according to an interview Etienne Vassiliadis, tritordeum has no beta glucans). 

The grain has been propped up by, among other things, a website from Vivagram. The website appears to be focused solely on tritordeum, providing some trivia, options to buy tritordeum, use cases, and more.

The future of tritordeum sees possible use for different types of livestock feed. The reason behind this is that tritordeum appears to have a higher yield of overall biomass compared to oats, barley, and other crops used in feed. More trials are being done to see how tritordeum handles different salinities. I hope to see more from it in the future.