HARVESTING
Barley has reached full harvest (or maturity) when it's golden in color and brittle. Barley moves easily in wind and resembles a wheat field. After you cut the barley plants, your next move depends entirely on your intended use. If you plan on using it as animal feed, chances are you have a machine to help with the cutting. If you are malting it (for beer, other alcohol and malted foods), it also may be a mass production for which you have helpful tools. For human food, cut the barley plants manually.
Harvesting
is generally done manually by using sickle. Harvesting time of barley is depending on the time of sowing, cropping period and maturity. Generally cropping period of barley in the hills is varies from 6-7 month. So, rabi barley is harvested from the end of April to end of May and the summer barley is harvested by September – October. Barley is more prone to shattering. So, in a order to reduce this type of loss, barley crop should be harvested before being fully matured and in the morning hours.
SAVING SEEDS
All varieties are out-crossing plants that are wind pollinated and will cross readily with one another. If you wish to save seed that will be strong for the long haul, you will need to plant it in large blocks of around 500 plants, save the best 100 cobs and mix the seed from those cobs, to take next years seed from. Hand pollination is possible.