Questions about Barley harvest and first fruits

Question

I am studying the agricultural cycle as it relates to the feasts, and have a few thorny questions about the firstfruit offering in Nisan, in Leviticus 23:9-14. This is my first question, so excuse me if I violate site policy by asking multiple questions in a single post -- I don't want to spam you with a bunch of related posts about barley.

1. This offering is in the middle of Nisan, but in some regions, the Barley doesn't ripen until late May or June -- what would these people do on the festival of firstfruits? Could they buy barley from someone else?

Barley is always sown in the autumn, after the “early rains,” and the barley harvest, which for any given locality precedes the wheat harvest (Ex 9:31 f), begins near Jericho in April—or even March—but in the hill country of Pal is not concluded until the end of May or beginning of June.[1]

2. It seems hard to believe that farmers would interrupt their barley harvesting and go on a pilgrimage in the middle of harvest season. How was this handled? For instance, I read somewhere that there was an early harvest and late harvest, and the lull between the two is when people would go on the pilgrimage, but again that doesn't seem to square with different harvest times in different places. Or was it possible to appoint a representative to go on the pilgrimage, while most of the family kept harvesting?

3. Can you confirm that there were no prohibitions on harvesting before the festival, but only on eating your produce? Were there prohibitions on selling your produce before you offered your first-fruits (If so, how would someone who needed to offer barley buy it)?

Update

I understand that this is not an exciting topic for most people, so if you don't want to spend a lot of time answering, but can point me to some written references or resources which might have the answers, I'd really appreciate it. You can even post that in a comment.

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[1] E. W. G. Masterman, “Barley,” ed. James Orr et al., The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company, 1915), 405.

Answer 1

It seems that there is some confusion in your question. The verses you quote are referring to the Omer offering which was made with barely.

This offering was a single communal offering that was taken from the closest place possible to Jerusalem, if it was ready to be harvested. There were times when they had to travel quite a distance to find barely that was ready. (Menachos 64B).

Any place that did not have good barely, and therefore we’re not used for the offering, were allowed to harvest any time. Places that were able to be used for the offering, had to wait until after the barely for the offering was harvested before harvesting their own crops (Menachos 71A)

Eating wheat or barley from the new crop was only permitted after the communal offering was brought (Menachos 68A-B)

The offering was brought on the second day of Passover, there was no specific pilgrimage for this, rather it was a pilgrimage for Passover.

There is a separate offering of just fruits, namely the 7 species, which include barely, which required a separate pilgrimage during the summer. This was an individual offering. It was brought between Shavuos and Succos and was extended until Chanuka if needed. This offering is described in Exodus 23:19 Numbers 18:23 and Deuteronomy 26:2.

This offering was allowed to be sent with a messenger if it was harvested with that intention (Rambam Bikkurim 2:21). Once the fruits were set aside there was no prohibition for the owner to harvest or sell his produce before bringing it.