INCORPORATING spring barley genes into much higher yielding winter varieties could be the answer to help meet the demands of the Scottish malting market. 
That was the message that Dr Bill Thomas of the James Hutton Institute (JHI) gave at Cereals in Practice, held at Saphock Farm, Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, where cereal variety trial plots with demonstrations took place.
He told growers at the event that the Impromalt project – which involves a consortium of UK breeders, research organisations and maltsters which freely exchange results only within the group – was making great progress and that new improved winter malting varieties could be on the market by 2025. 
“We don’t produce enough malting barley here in Scotland. The demand for the whisky industry is around one million tonnes or more but Scots can only produce around 750,000 tonnes with the rest being brought up from England or elsewhere,” said Dr Thomas.
“We have been able to identify quality genes within spring barley and we are looking through the project to introgress these into winter barley. This approach is particularly important in a year like this as 2018 won’t be a bumper year – spring barley crops are looking stressed throughout Scotland although winter barley crops are looking much more resilient.”
Dr Thomas also added that if growers can get winter barley through the winter successfully in the future then there will be a decent supply of good quality malting barley and we could see a switch towards winter crops. 
Meanwhile, Professor Fiona Burnett of SRUC said that the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system has helped reduce fungicide programmes and that the loss of chemical seed treatment was creating renewed interest in biological treatments. 
Trial work into these natural products, known as elicitors which are compounds that can activate chemical defence in plants, is being funded by the Mains of Loirston Trust. 
Prof Burnett said: “IPM is more of powerful tool than relying on a fungicide itself. Growers are responding to the recent climate changes and although they may not think that that counts as IPM – they are in fact applying it.
“Most plants have the ability to defend themselves, but speed of response is key for a plant affecting diseases. Some elicitors can be used as seed treatments, but most are foliar applications which should be applied very early in the programme. Growers can save on fungicides – it’s about knowing where we should deploy them.”
A similar point was underlined by Andy Evans of SRUC who said that the amount of fertilisers and nitrogen applied to crops could be reduced.
“Growers are throwing on tonnes of nitrogen and it’s not taking much effect. Some of the low input crops look like high input nitrogen crops but thanks to this year’s weather, we can actually see visible granules of nitrogen still sitting on top of crops,” he said. 
“We need to look at reducing levels of nitrogen and applying different nitrogen rates. Some growers are moving away from varieties with weaknesses though and are looking at resistant varieties. It’s all about timing, though – you have to look at it across all crops.”
Mr Evans also pointed out that pests are more noticeable this year, particularly in spring barley crops, due to a combination of the dry weather and the fact that crops are much thinner. 
The impressive new spring malting barley, Laureate – which has taken over three new varieties which have been on the recommended list for longer and has a dual purpose of both malting and brewing – was again praised by Dr Steve Hoad, also from SRUC.
“There is now more seed available for Laureate than Concerto, so this may suggest that the popular Concerto variety is on its way out. Laureate has performed extremely well in the north of the country and has a striking yield difference of 12% over Concerto,” he said. 
Dr Hoad also praised the three spring barley varieties – LG Diablo, LG Tomohawk and RGT Astorid – whi|ch are still under Malting Barley Committee (MBC) testing and on the new recommended list for 2018/2019. 
“LG Diablo is the highest yielding spring barley on the AHDB recommended list with a 106% treated yield. It’s a dual-purpose variety being suited for both brewing and distilling and has a mildew resistant score of 9,” said Dr Hoad. 
He continued: “LG Tomohawk is suited for distilling only and matches RGT Planet and Laureate’s treated yield of 105%. It also has a mildew resistant score of 9 and 8 for yellow rust. RGT Astroid is useful for all three markets and is particularly well suited to the Scottish distilling market. It produces grain with high hot water extract and high diastatic power and has a treated yield of 103% with similar resistant scores to mildew and yellow rust as the other two varieties mentioned.”
On the wheat front, Dr Simon Oxley who heads AHDB’s recommended list said that the distilling winter wheat variety, LG Sundance deserves to become more popular in the market thanks to its Septoria resistance score of 7.4, 9 for yellow rust and 7 for mildew.