Perennial Wheat

[MikeH]

I've got some of Tim Peter's Ezeer wheat but it's not been very winter hardy.  I had a single plant overwinter last year.  I got some seed from it.  I'm not sure but it may have overwintered again this year. I've started some of the saved seed under lights and will pot up before I plant out.  I'd like to get as much root mass as possible before winter.  I also plan to grow some in large rooter pots to create root mass and then overwinter the pots in a cold room under a growlight on a timer to simulate weak winter sun.  The rooms stays just above freezing all winter long.  The idea is to take the plant through a mild "winter" with roots intact and then plant out.  I'm speculating here that part of the winterkill problem is that the plants might not have a well developed enough root system to survive the cold that we have.

Tim, any thoughts on this???