Differences in rainfall levels in the different malting barley regions pointed to the challenges met by growers in different parts of the country in 2020.

The background rainfall levels were presented during the announcement of the Boortmalt regional malting barley excellence awards at an online gathering on 20 November.

The award winners announced were Leonard Hovenden from Ballylynan, Pat Lowry from Timahoe, Ian McDonald from Killeshin, Martin and Jamie Whelan from Ballingale, Francis and Philip Kehoe from Lacken, and Pierce and Sean Cousins from Kilmore.

Challenge

As part of the announcement, Eoin Lyons, who is an advisor in the joint programme for malting barley, explained that in the Wexford monitor farms, the rainfall levels in March and April were only slightly below the 30-year average.

This was a substantial help to crops when May came very dry, as they had established well and got to tiller out before the drought bit.

But the next three months had almost double the average for each month and this led to other challenges during grain fill and ripening.

High grain nitrogen levels were a concern

Further north, the rainfall averages for the farms in Carlow, Laois and Kildare were much drier in the March to May period and this left crops looking quite poorly coming into June, as they had not tillered out and were very short.

In these counties the next three months (June to August) had close to normal rainfall, but the thin crops began to tiller again and the warm soil released a flush of mineralised nitrogen on top of the applied nitrogen from early in the season that had not been taken up by the crop.

High grain nitrogen levels were a concern from that point forward.

Soil testing

One of the objectives of the joint programme is to tackle low soil fertility in fields growing malting barley.

Of the significant amount of soil testing done to date, Eoin reported that 48% of the fields tested were at index three and four for phosphorus (P).

This might seem disappointing, but he commented that much of the low P levels were from Wexford fields, where P is naturally low and where it is very difficult to get levels to rise.

The situation with potash was much more favourable, with 78% of fields now at index three and four. And the situation was broadly similar for pH, where 76% of fields were above 6.5.

As part of this soil fertility drive, soil testing is being subsidised with the basic S1 test, which Teagasc organises, costing malting barley growers only €10/sample, while the more complex S4 test, giving macro and micronutrient levels plus pH, costs only €20 per sample.

These are significant cost reductions and sensible growers should be availing of them to help differentiate between different parts of fields that show differential growth patterns.

Winter varieties

While there has been an interest in winter-sown crops for malting for some time, this interest has increased many fold in 2020 due the challenges faced by the spring crop.

Boortmalt is now looking at five different winter varieties with malting potential, with Craft being the biggest at the moment.

For 2021, Boortmalt growers have planted Craft (1,000ha), SY Electrum (90ha), SY Joyau (54ha), SY Vessel (35ha), plus a small area of a numbered variety.

The hope is to pursue one of these in time as a commercial malting variety for winter planting. On top of these, growers have also planted the spring variety Laureate (130ha) in the autumn for the distilling market.

New projects

To help meet the increasing challenges of supply spec, sustainability obligations and to help make malting barley the most profitable tillage crop, Boortmalt continues to be involved in research and development.

Its head of agriculture Rodrigo Vilches reported that Boortmalt is currently involved in the development of a satellite imagery tool which would help it foresee quality issues in developing crops, something which would be very useful for planning purposes.

As well as being involved with Teagasc in several trials, Rodrigo said that the company is also attempting to measure carbon emissions through the supply chain.

It is beginning to look at tramline-scale research projects to better reflect issues that are difficult to assess on a small-plot scale.

It is also involved in different development projects with Syngenta and BASF to help with the increasingly stringent requirements of markets into the future.