Barley (Hordeum vulgare), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally.

It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikelets and making it much easier to harvest.

Globally, 70% of barley production is used as animal feed, while 30% is used as a source of fermentable material for beer, or further distilled into whisky, and as a component of various foods.

[15] Bambusoideae (bamboos) (fescue, ryegrass) Hordeum (barley) Triticum (wheat) Secale (rye) Oryza (rice) other grasses Sorghum (sorghum) Zea (maize) Barley was one of the first grains to be domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, an area of relatively abundant water in Western Asia,[17] around 9,000 BC.

[9] A study of genome-wide diversity markers found Tibet to be an additional center of domestication of cultivated barley.

[19] The earliest archaeological evidence of the consumption of wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, comes from the Epipaleolithic at Ohalo II at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, where grinding stones with traces of starch were found.

[9][20][21] The earliest evidence for the domestication of barley, in the form of cultivars that cannot reproduce without human assistance, comes from Mesopotamia, specifically the Jarmo region of modern-day Iraq, around 9,000–7,000 BC.

[25] Wild barley has a brittle spike; upon maturity, the spikelets separate, facilitating seed dispersal.

[28] Barley has been grown in the Korean Peninsula since the Early Mumun Pottery Period (circa 1500–850 BC).

[29] Barley (Yava in Sanskrit) is mentioned many times in the Rigveda and other Indian scriptures as a principal grain in ancient India.

[30] Traces of barley cultivation have been found in post-Neolithic Bronze Age Harappan civilization 5,700–3,300 years ago.

[34] In mainland Greece, the ritual significance of barley possibly dates back to the earliest stages of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The preparatory kykeon or mixed drink of the initiates, prepared from barley and herbs, mentioned in the Homeric hymn to Demeter.

The goddess's name may have meant "barley-mother", incorporating the ancient Cretan word δηαί (dēai), "barley".

[35][36] The practice was to dry the barley groats and roast them before preparing the porridge, according to Pliny the Elder's Natural History.

[39] In medieval Europe, bread made from barley and rye was peasant food, while wheat products were consumed by the upper classes.

A pair of mutations (one dominant, the other recessive) result in fertile lateral spikelets to produce six-row barleys.

Because these differences were driven by single-gene mutations, coupled with cytological and molecular evidence, most recent classifications treat these forms as a single species, H.

[46] Barley is a crop that prefers relatively low temperatures, 15 to 20 °C (59 to 68 °F) in the growing season; it is grown around the world in temperate areas.

[11] A large number of molecular markers are available for breeding of resistance to leaf rust, powdery mildew, Rhynchosporium secalis, Pyrenophora teres f. teres, Barley yellow dwarf virus, and the Barley yellow mosaic virus complex.

[61] With a long history of cultivation in the Middle East, barley is used in a wide range of traditional Arabic, Assyrian, Israelite, Kurdish, and Persian foodstuffs including keşkek, kashk, and murri.

[62] Cholent or hamin (in Hebrew) is a traditional Jewish stew often eaten on the Sabbath, in numerous recipes by both Mizrachi and Ashkenazi Jews; its original form was a barley porridge.

[64] The six-row variety bere is cultivated in Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and the Western Isles of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

[66] The naval surgeon Takaki Kanehiro introduced it into institutional cooking to combat beriberi, endemic in the armed forces in the 19th century.

[68] According to Health Canada and the US Food and Drug Administration, consuming at least 3 grams per day of barley beta-glucan can lower levels of blood cholesterol, a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases.

[71] Consuming breakfast cereals containing barley over weeks to months improves cholesterol levels and glucose regulation.

[87] In the Old English poem Beowulf, and in Norse mythology, Scyld Scefing (the second name meaning "with a sheaf") and his son Beow ("Barley") are associated with the grain, or are possibly corn-gods; J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a poem "King Sheave" about them, and based a major element of his legendarium, the Old Straight Road from Middle-earth to the earthly paradise of Valinor, on their story.

[88] William of Malmesbury's 12th century Chronicle tells the story of the related figure Sceafa as a sleeping child in a boat without oars with a sheaf of corn at his head.

[90] In English folklore, the figure of John Barleycorn in the folksong of the same name is a personification of barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky.

The antiquary Cuthbert Sharp records that Elsie Marley was "a handsome, buxom, bustling landlady, and brought good custom to the [ale] house by her civility and attention.