Chia
Scientific name: Salvia hispanica Common name: chia Family: Lamiaceae Category: small seeded / specialty seed crop
Chia is the first and primary research subject of DIY Agriculture. It serves as the complete case study for testing the repository methodology end to end: germination through storage, at human scale (PRD §8.1).
Documentation outlineEvidence limits
⚠️ Status: This is a documentation outline, not research. All substantive values are Unknown until evidence is collected. Do not treat anything here as growing advice.
Why chia first
Section titled “Why chia first”Chia is the original motivating crop (PRD §4). It is a small-seeded specialty crop with real human-scale production questions: how the tiny seeds are separated from the plant, cleaned, dried, and stored by hand. It is an excellent stress test of the “small-scale relevance” principle because most published work assumes industrial threshing and cleaning.
Documentation map
Section titled “Documentation map”| Topic | Page | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | index.md | This page — identity and reading order |
| Biology | biology.md | Taxonomy, growth habit, lifecycle, flowering, photoperiod, seed development |
| Climate | climate.md | Temperatures, frost/heat tolerance, rainfall, photoperiod |
| Soil | soil.md | Soil type, texture, drainage, pH, salinity, preparation |
| Planting | planting.md | Seed, germination, direct sowing, density, dates |
| Irrigation | irrigation.md | Water needs by growth stage, water stress |
| Fertilization | fertilization.md | N, P, K, micronutrients, compost/manure |
| Pests & diseases | pests-diseases.md | Insects, fungi, birds, weeds |
| Harvesting | harvesting.md | Maturity, harvest window, manual harvesting |
| Processing | processing.md | Threshing, winnowing, cleaning, sorting |
| Storage | storage.md | Drying, moisture, containers, shelf life, seed viability |
| Yield | yield.md | Yield across scales (g/plant → kg/ha) |
| Economics | economics.md | Inputs, labor, cost per kg, market equivalent |
| Open questions | open-questions.md | What is not yet known |
| Sources | sources.md | Sources cited for chia |
High-level identity (to be confirmed by evidence)
Section titled “High-level identity (to be confirmed by evidence)”- Growth habit: warm-season, short-day annual herb. Evidence: Unknown.
- Key human-scale challenge: separating and cleaning very small seeds from the dry inflorescences. Evidence: Unknown.
- The five-crop comparison (chia, amaranth, sesame, sunflower, dry beans) is designed around contrasting seed sizes and processing difficulty (PRD §8).
How to extend this page set
Section titled “How to extend this page set”Follow the standard crop documentation structure (PRD.md §12) and the crop template in templates/crop/. Research method and evidence rules are in docs/methodology/.
Suggested reading order for a newcomer
Section titled “Suggested reading order for a newcomer”- This index → 2.
biology.md→ 3.climate.md→ 4.soil.md→ 5.yield.md→ 6.processing.md(the hardest human-scale step) → 7.open-questions.md.