The future of spring barley breeding will continue to see incremental gains with a focus on plants achieving strong yields using fewer inputs, according to SRUC academic Steve Hoad.

Changes to varieties in major quality traits such as malt extract seem to be slowing down, according to the scientist, who believes a new variety offering a significant rise in malt or spirit yield is unlikely in the short to medium future. However, Steve believes that future varieties will better utilise inputs and offer greater disease resistance while improving processing efficiency and maintaining quality, which is critical to the malting market.

Steve said: “The spring barley sector is dominated by Laureate as the variety performs well in yield and quality; as a result, even farmers growing for the feed market are putting it high yielding malting varieties in the ground. Although we approach I think this demonstrates we are close to a ceiling in terms of extract per tonne of grain, we expect gains in farm yield, in fields, but accompanied by there is room for improvement on disease and input utilisation.”

“So many acres under the one variety do leave the sector vulnerable due to a lack of farm diversity, though. If certain growing conditions were to hit Laureate particularly hard, a huge section of the Scottish arable sector would see a poor year. This is something we need to consider across the sector, and this includes maltsters too. Ideally, we would have a greater number of varieties to choose from.”

Grain buyers purchasing cereals for malting look to have sourced a limited number of varieties so that uniform processing is as simple as possible. Economies of scale are gained when a single variety can be treated in large batches as opposed to processing different varieties, which have a range of attributes.

However, despite the processing benefits of using a limited number of varieties, Steve believes that more diversity could help farmers. He said: “We could look at varieties on a regional basis for their local adaptation. Scotland is a very diverse country, and what works in Berwickshire might not be optimal for Caithness. I would recommend farmers quiz their buyers for the best agronomic and grain quality options available to plant.”

Steve believes that new varieties coming in the future will make improvements agronomically so that yields and quality can be achieved with less fertiliser or plant protection products. However, the amount of alcohol yielded per ton appears to be close to a maximum, which coincides with due to the improved efficiency in processing and the malting performance of modern varieties. Although major quality improvements are also slowing down, according to Steve, who also pointed out that some new varieties that offer a gain in yield are often poorer and could also bring additional distilling and brewing qualities, including gains in processing efficiency.

Steve is more hopeful that future varieties will offer good resistance to rigs, Rhynchosporium, and net blotch. However, research is struggling to find plants that offer significant resistance to ramularia. Steve explained: “The genetic variation just does not appear to be there to find plants that offer resistance to ramularia; this is why varieties are typically rated as average to poor, with no candidates offering good resistance.”

Breeding a new variety takes from five to ten years depending on the cereal. The long lead-in times mean that if a new specific trait becomes desirable, then farmers will not see it in their fields for a number of years. Though, spring barley has the benefit of being able to go through breeders’ selections in grow two crops a year, with seeds grown in places like New Zealand and Scotland.