How many bushels of barley per acre

The current, rapid growth in the Michigan craft brewing industry has resulted in strong interest in locally sourced ingredients for locally produced beer. Interest has also emerged regarding local availability of malt for small breweries. For malt products to be truly local, high-quality, malting grade barley grain must also be available locally.

Malting barley grain standards are very high, requiring a higher level of crop management than feed-grade barley. The anticipated price for locally produced malting barley when a new, niche market emerges should make the effort to grow it worthwhile. Disease management, nitrogen fertility and variety evaluation have been the focus so far.

The idea driving these trials has been to create a new cash crop opportunity for northern Michigan farmers with the possibility of entering the commodity malting barley markets with points of sale in Wisconsin or further west. During summer , the concept of local malting barley grain and malt production emerged with strong industry support from the Michigan Brewers Guild.

With over micro-breweries in the state and more coming along, there may be real opportunities for specialty malting barley grain production. One problem is the lack of smaller scale, local malting facilities to process the barley grain into a malt product available to brewers. Efforts are underway to expand research and development for local malt production statewide, including production of malting grade barley grain.

Local malting barley grain production will probably not move barley acreage up a notch among the three top small grains in Michigan. Choices between winter and spring malting barley should be based on understanding the risk, yield, grain quality, and recommendations of the malthouse to which you are selling.

Average winter barley yields are typically bushels per acre— but they are also the least winterhardy small grain that can be grown in New York so management guidelines for planting date and depth and soil drainage must be followed or frost heaving and plant death will occur. Since snow cover is key to protecting winter barley from extreme temperatures and drying winds, some degree of winter damage may occur in fields lacking snow cover, even if best practices were followed. Avoid varieties that are not winter hardy.

Average spring barley yields are typically bushels per acre. Management guidelines for planting date and soil drainage must be followed or spring barley yield potential will be low from late planting. Head emergence and grain filling during warmer weather for spring barley is often more conducive for fungal diseases. Plant malting barley on well-drained fields with a pH of 6. Compared to other small grains, malting barley is markedly less tolerant of wet soils and low pH.

Malting barley should ideally be planted in soils that:. Winter barley can more commonly suffer from wet soils because of exposure to spring thaw conditions.

Malting barley should not be planted without first soil testing potential fields for pH and other plant nutrients. Planting date, rate, and seed depth are important to achieve your desired plant population.

Winter barley should be ideally planted the second or third week of September. Plant malting barley at a rate of two bushels 96 lbs per acre. Higher seeding rates may increase lodging, disease potential, and lead to smaller and more variable kernels.

Plant seed Shallow planting hinders proper root development; this is particularly crucial for winter barley. Do not broadcast seed of a malting barley crop as seed depth will be inconsistent and may result in stands that are too thick, thin, or variable. Nitrogen fertility management is important for malting barley to yield well and meet malting quality standards. Protein levels are dependent on available N.

Targeting N fertility can be difficult though because of potential losses due to denitrification and leaching with high precipitation and variable soil drainage. Also, malting barley N fertility rates have not been thoroughly evaluated in the Northeast to date.

Growers need to consider N contributions from previous crops, manure, and nitrogen fertilizer to preserve grain quality and avoid lodging. Given what is known for spring barley, apply pounds per acre of N at planting. For winter barley apply pounds per acre of N at planting in the fall and target pounds of N per acre at green-up in early spring or split applied between green-up and stem elongation.

Growers will need to adjust nitrogen rates for their situation to achieve the desired crude protein. The biggest barrier now is maltsters resisting change and not letting us use plant growth regulators. An option like Ethrel can improve standability and lower protein levels if applied at the right time and the right rate.

SK: In one respect, it might be too vigorous. It sounds like there is a push to breed dual-purpose varieties that yield like feed but have malt quality. As a malt grower, that concerns me, as it may lead to more people growing malt and driving the price down. It could also mean that less of my barley makes the cut, and profitability in this business is all about rate of acceptance. SK: One of the biggest changes we made was no longer growing barley on barley.

Aaron Beattie: Our program strategy has been successful bringing in germplasm from other parts of the world that may give us continual yield increases. A lot of European material has a different source of genetics that can complement our efforts. Improving yield by a couple of percentage points every few years is significant, but you can easily lose more than that to disease, so resistance allows us to protect those yield gains.

GW: How urgent is the need to increase barley yield and what are the barriers? AB: Urgency is high as farmers are at the end of their rope in dealing with older varieties. There needs to be coordination among [the marketing strategies of seed companies, pilot testing by maltsters and the brewers] and more sharing of who is doing what and how varieties are working. AB: The other big component of barley yield is lodging resistance. If crops are lying on the ground for several weeks, your yield and quality will go out the door, but the new higher-yielding lines should be standing up better to improve ease of harvest and maintain quality.

We talk about the decline in acres but that seems to have hit a plateau, and there are reasons for optimism. The craft brewing industry is a rapidly growing segment of the beer market.

They use more malt per unit of beer than the larger breweries, so more malt will be needed to service them as their numbers grow. Then there is a big export market like China where they are developing a higher-end beer market and thus buying more malt. There are also signals that China might be interested in developing a more consistent feed market and buying more feed barley from Canada.

These are all encouraging signs that barley demand will remain strong in the future. If that demand is accompanied by yield improvement, it could be a big win for farmers and industry. You must be logged in to post a comment.

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