Dr Melinda Maxwell made six straw yokes for Louvre aulos and Jonathan Bingham, a 3rd-year music undergraduate, made seven straw yokes for a Berlin aulos that we made together from bamboo. The significant research result from these two days, building on the Würzburg findings, is that straw reeds can be hard to blow, pitch-steady, and dark or husky in timbre. 

It matters where and when you harvest, how you cure it, and which internode you use. Given favourable conditions, wild oats may grow 2 metres tall. The Avena sterilis stems we harvested in 2024 have seven internodes, thicker and stiffer at the base, progressively thinner and more flexible towards the sky. This produces seven grades of reed hardness; reeds made from lower internodes may be gut-busters!