Spring barley LG Diablo has been given full approval for brewing use by the Malting Barley Committee (MBC), following its full approval last year for malt distilling.

The Limagrain variety is now the highest yielding spring barley variety with full approval for both brewing and malt distilling on the 2020/21 AHDB recommended list, pointed out Matt Shand, UK national sales manager for the seed company’s UK business.

“With this recent approval, LG Diablo now holds the title of being dual-use, demonstrating the robustness of its quality characteristics, as required by end users in both the brewing and malt distilling sectors,” he added.

But, it’s not just its quality characteristics that are valuable, added Ron Granger, Limagrain’s arable technical manager.

“LG Diablo sits amongst the very top yielders on the AHDB recommended list, yielding 105% of control. Significantly, its yields are highest in the key malting barley growing areas of the east (106%) and north (107%).

“Its untreated yields remain at the top of the yield table alongside Laureate at 97% of control, and 2% over that of RGT Planet. This shows just how robust the variety’s disease resistance ratings are,” he added.

Mr Granger sees LG Diablo’s agronomic package as being particularly attractive to growers; LG Diablo has straw characteristics similar to RGT Planet; medium in height (73cm) with good lodging and brackling resistance.

The variety has a very good specific weight of 67.1 kg/hl, which is important in the malting industry as malting is a volume-based process and low specific weights cause reduced throughput in the processing plants, pointed out Mr Granger.

“Its hot water extract is a similar level to that of Concerto – a trait that helped Concerto to become a benchmark variety. A high hot water extract is heavily desired by the end user in order for them to achieve higher sugar extraction rates from the malt and the ability to create more alcohol – and LG Diablo offers this.”