Early sowing yields best results on malting barley

SOWING early in good conditions is the key to managing malting barley crops that are targeted at the low-protein distilling contracts.

This was one of the standout messages from Teagasc’s Malting Barley Conference which was held at the Riverside Hotel, Enniscorthy yesterday.

Teagasc researcher Dr Richie Hackett told the conference that high yields will dilute protein in distilling crops, and he said the best way to lift yields was to sow early in good conditiions.

Mr Hackett added that early-sown crops also allowed a longer window for nitrogen take up, which made hitting the low protein threshold for the crop more readily attainable.

The protein cut-off for distilling contracts is 8.8pc, while protein levels in malting crops must be in the range of 8.8pc to 10.8pc.

Growers have complained that attaining the low protein threshold for distilling crops has been extremely difficult to achieve unless fertiliser applications are curtailed, which then hits yields. However, Mr Hackett said early sowing of crops early would help in addressing this problem.

He also advised farmers to target fields which have a history of producing low protein malting crops when deciding where to plant barley for distilling contracts.

Liz Glynn from Teagasc told growers that a high application of fungicides was not required for general disease control.

She said half rates of a combined fungicide product was sufficient to ensure maximum disease control as long as the applications were well timed. Ms Glynn said the crop should be sprayed at late tillering and awns peeping (GS 45) for the best results.

Ciaran Hickey, a Teagasc tillage advisor based in Enniscorthy, the heart of the malting barley area, talked through the process that local farmer James Morris takes to meet the malting specs. Mr Morris pays particular attention to his soils and establishment of the crop to achieve high yields.

Mr Hickey said there are challenges to reliably producing low protein barley but the understanding of how to achieve this has improved in the past number of years.

Seamus Kearney from the Agriculture Department discussed variety selection.