By Alice McFarlane

Barley Technical Centre has new varieties available for production

Nov 24, 2020 | 3:44 PM

MELFORT, Sask. – The Canadian Malt Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) has released a list of recommended malting barley varieties for spring seeding.

Managing director Peter Watts said each of the recommended malt barley varieties hold the most promise for farmers in terms of marketing their barley for malt.

“Established varieties include AC Metcalfe, CDC Copeland and AAC Synergy. These are the varieties that are being grown in the largest amounts and are widely accepted by customers both domestically and around the world,” Watts said.

New malting barley varieties that are showing promise include AAC Connect, CDC Bow and CDC Fraser which are being produced in commercial quantities and are being tested by the domestic malting and brewing industry and by customers around the world.

Watts said producers should consider growing these new varieties.

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“They tend to have better agronomics, yields and resistance to lodging. They have better disease packages, so overall for producers, these varieties are advantageous,” Watts said. “They have good malting and brewing characteristics so they will have a good chance of selection.”

Watts said the challenge for the industry is to get these new varieties accepted by all the major customers of Canadian malting barley.

“We do pilot testing at the CMBTC. We do malting and brewing tests, we provide the results to the customers so they can review it. We provide them with samples of the new varieties and we even send containers of new varieties to companies to do production trials on locations,” he said.

The technical centre will send 100 to 400 tonnes of the new varieties to China, according to Watts, so they can process it themselves and see how they perform in their own facilities.

Watts said the United States, Japan, and Mexico are currently the major customers of Canadian barley and malt. Most of it is going to beer, a little bit goes to the distilling industry.

The malt barley industry is very important to western Canadian farmers. Sales of malting barley and malt alone are worth about a $1 billion a year if you combine domestic and international sales.

Watts said it’s an important crop for western Canadian farmers.

“Somewhere in the neighbourhood of five to five and a half million tonnes each year and about half of that again ends up being selected for malting barley and the other half ends up in the feed sector. But a good portion of it, particularly with a good harvest, gets selected for malting.”

Watts said farmers want to grow malt barley as it commands a price premium.

“It does sometimes have a price premium although currently because of a strong demand for feed barley in the global market particularly from China for Canadian feed barley we’re seeing a very narrow premium between feed and malting barley right now. That’s good news for producers in the sense that it gives them options.”

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF