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sHesaiD, THreesaiD
By saraH WeiGUM
scott keller,
NewNorway, AB
We grow CDC Copeland and CDC Mere-
dith. It’s nice to have varieties with different
maturities. We seed the Copeland before
the Meredith in the spring, and that spreads
the window out in the fall.
We upped our phosphorus to 35 to 45
pounds, which lets us use more nitrogen. A
good crop of barley used to be 75 to 80 bushels
per acre, now we’re in the low to mid-90s.
We use fungicides, and if you keep the
disease down you get plumper kernels and
lower protein. Our fertility plan is geared
towards leaving some yield on the table to
keep the plant standing. I did trials this
year with plant growth regulators on fields
that had a history of heavy manure, and
the barley was all vertical there. With our
nitrogen, phosphate and fungicide, we’re
probably always going to get plump and pro-
tein—chitting and sprouting are our major
risks. We start straight-cutting barley at 17.5
to 18 per cent moisture and we dry every
bushel of malt.
Dave Davidson,
Haynes, AB
We use Farmers Edge (FE) for all our
inputs. After we take the crop off, FE
probes and sends in samples for analysis.
Then we’ll sit down and go over each
field. We might only need 20 pounds of
nitrogen in green areas, but red areas
might need 130. Before FE, we had
trouble with protein because of our roll-
ing land. We don’t want to over-fertilize,
but we still want to maximize our yields.
I try to seed between May 1 and
May 5. The goal is to get it off before
the monsoons in September. When the
barley gets to about 18 per cent mois-
ture we’ll cut it and put it in bins to dry,
since it will chit so easily. We’ll swath
right ahead of the combine. Get it off
quick—that’s the secret of malt barley.
We dry the grain at about 110° C. At that
temperature, it takes a point of moisture
a day out of it.
DonaldMueller,
Three Hills, AB
We start off with a good rotation. We exclu-
sively put barley on canola stubble. On pea
stubble, we might get carried away with
protein. Our fertilizer blend is between
75 and 80 pounds of nitrogen, 35 to 40 of
phosphorus and probably 15 of potash.
We always seed from certified seed,
usually 110 pounds of barley per acre. The
higher plant population can produce a
smaller head, which is less prone to break
off. It also produces a more consistent ker-
nel size, so you have less little kernels that
tend to be higher in protein. We’ve been
growing CDC Meredith the last couple of
years. The lower protein means we can
get away with more fertilizer than other
varieties.
I prefer to bag the barley because it cools
quicker, extending germination and vigour.
We’ve had barley in bags from fall to spring
and the germination stayed at 100 per cent.
Meredith’s lower protein also produces a
more European-style malt.
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From seeding dates and variety selection to grain storage and a good rela-
tionship with your maltster, many variables factor into successful malt barley
production. Three Hills-area farmer and writer SarahWeigum asked three
Alberta farmers what they do to achieve malt-quality barley on their farms.
Winter
2014
grainswest.com
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