Barley is cultivated as food for chickens, or malted on a Malting Tray for brewing beer. Additionally, it can be roasted in a Grain Oven and (in both raw and roasted forms) can be cooked in a kitchen to make various recipes.
Barley is grown using (raw) barley, water, grain fertilizer, and weed killer, and requires the Barley Cultivation skill. (NOTE: Weed killer is not strictly necessary for growing barley, and some cultivation strategies ignore it.) New citizens may obtain a starter packet of 4 raw barley from any University of Worship where Barley Cultivation has been unlocked.
Plant a barley patch on grassy terrain. Barley patches have controls to add water, fertilizer, and weed killer, and meters indicating the current level of each. When water and fertilizer are high, the barley will grow rapidly. When water and fertlizer are low, the barley will die back. Weed killer has no effect on the pace of growth. Water, fertilizer, and weed killer levels will all drop as time passes.
Barley may be harvested at any time. When the control panel indicates that the patch is "Ready to Harvest", it will produce 10 barley. Harvesting before a patch is ready will produce substantially less (or possibly no) barley. A barley patch which is Ready for Harvest will die 20 TeppyMinutes later if left unharvested.
There are several ways to increase the yield of a "Ready to Harvest" barley patch:
A Prentice of Worship with Green Thumb using the Ritual of Plant Growth will therefore reap 50 barley from a completed patch. The above bonuses only apply to patches which are Ready to Harvest; there is no gain in patches harvested early. All bonuses are calculated based on who harvests the barley, not who grows it.
In order for a barley patch to achieve "Ready to Harvest" status, it must have reached a certain level of growth and be entirely free of weeds.
As barley grows, one or more weeds may appear in the patch. Weeds will retard the growth of the barley, and will prevent a patch from becoming Ready to Harvest. There are three kinds of weeds, each one requiring a different technique to fight:
You must eliminate a weed completely before allowing the water or fertilizer level rise again; otherwise, it will simply return.
Fill water and fertilizer to the maximum immediately after planting the barley. Every tick, add more water and fertilizer to keep the bars maximized. Keep a sharp eye out for weeds.
If yellow weeds appear, stop adding water until the weed is gone. When water reaches 50%, add weed killer and keep weed killer above 50%. (Weed killer will not eliminate the weed until water has dropped below 50%, so there is no reason to add it before then.) Keep fertilizer at 50-75%; there is a good chance that one of the other weeds will appear before you have killed this one, forcing you to drop fertlizer.
If green or brown weeds appear, stop adding fertilizer until the weed is gone. For green weeds, add weed killer when fertilizer has dropped to 50%. Keep water at 75-100%; yellow weeds is the only ones vulnerable to water, so there is less chance that you will need to decrease water before killing the current weed.
Be very careful when adding water or fertilizer back in after killing off a weed. Weeds can be hard to spot, and if even one remains, you will have to start the process all over again.
Harvest patches only when they are ready to harvest.
When growing multiple patches of barley using this method, it is useful to plant them in a circle and stand in the middle. Rotate the camera to examine each patch in turn, maintain it, and move on to the next.
Plant as many patches as you can monitor at once. Maximize water and fertilizer in each patch. If a weed appears in a patch, harvest it immediately and plant a new one.
There is some debate over whether this techique is more or less efficient than the one using weedkiller described above.
This technique is provided thanks to idnic
Plant as many patches as you can click on in a single tick (usually between 10-20). Maximize water and weedkiller in each patch.
On every tick, add (maximize) water. Every other tick, add (maximize) weedkiller. Add a single fertilizer when the fertilizer levels are extremely low. Repeat until the barley is Ready to Harvest. This technique uses an average of 20 weedkiller and 3 fertilizer per patch, and takes an average of 10 minutes to come to full harvest.
While roughly as time-efficient as the normal weedkiller strategy, it is very weedkiller-inefficient. With 3x or 5x Barley harvest, it is more efficient than non-weedkiller methods.
(See also: Agriculture)