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Quality trials target top malt barley varieties to fuel Canada's success

What will be the top malting barley varieties to anchor Canada's future success? The answer may be found among 10 new barley lines undergoing rigorous testing this summer, in a series of Prairie-wide trials co-ordinated by the Brewing and Malting Barley Research Institute (BMBRI).

These collaborative trials, known as the "collabs," are a major check-stop for new barley lines on the road to variety registration, says Dr. Erin Armstrong, President and CEO of BMBRI. The trials are designed purely to test malt quality, and only those that meet high standards will eventually be granted registration.

"The collaborative trials are essential to ensure the new malting barley lines recommended for registration are those with the best chance of commercial success," says Armstrong. "A new malting barley line may perform well in the field, but in order to create success for farmers and the industry as a whole it must also meet specific technical requirements for malting and brewing. The collab trials give BMBRI members - which represent nine leading malting and brewing companies - a solid basis for evaluating how these lines would fit with their processes."

The collabs typically take two years for each barley line and are a required part of the public registration system for malting barley, says Armstrong. Candidate lines are tested in a broad range of conditions across the Prairies, samples are screened by commercial selectors and samples from sites with acceptable quality are chosen for processing by BMBRI member companies and the Grains Research Laboratory (GRL). Data and recommendations from this process are passed on to the Prairie Regional Recommending Committee for Grain (PRRCG), which makes recommendations to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on which lines should be granted registration.

This year, 10 candidate barley lines are participating in the collabs at eight sites across the Prairies. All lines must show equal-to-or-better-than performance over standard or "check" varieties as a minimum to gain registration support, says Armstrong. For two-row malting barley, the current check varieties are AC Metcalfe, CDC Kendall and Harrington. For six-row malting barley, the checks are CDC Sisler and Excel.

"On the two-row side, the check varieties reflect a shift in the industry toward a new generation of malting barley varieties," says Armstrong. "Harrington is the long-time standard that has enjoyed a 20 year reign as the two-row malting barley of choice, but in recent years we've seen a major shift in acreage toward a range of new varieties, including AC Metcalfe and CDC Kendall. These two varieties were added in recent years as checks for both the collaborative trials and the public co-operative trials, which collect disease and agronomic performance data, to join and eventually succeed Harrington as the checks for two-row malting barley."

Since malting barley varieties are ultimately evaluated based on the complete package of malting, disease and agronomic performance, it makes sense to use the same check varieties in both testing systems, says Armstrong.

Following harvest at the collaborative trial sites, barley samples are sent to participating BMBRI member companies and the GRL. Selectors at these companies examine the samples according to standard barley selection factors, and identify acceptable sites to process for micro malting.

"The barley lines from acceptable locations are examined as though they were commercial barley varieties," says Armstrong. "The selectors assess whether or not the lines meet stringent requirements for protein, plumpness, disease absence and germination, along with other important barley selection factors."

Until the past several years, pilot-scale brewing was also a routine part of the collaborative trials, but this practice has become limited to special cases, says Armstrong. "This change stemmed from the recognition that pilot scale brewing tests were not a major contributor to early stage evaluation by malting and brewing companies. The goal of the collaborative tests is to support the registration of the best pool of barley lines, from which industry can then select varieties at the post-registration stage for commercial scale testing, which is the ultimate test of variety performance."

The effect of this change on volume requirements has allowed BMBRI to increase the number of lines that undergo pilot-scale malting, she says. "We are now assessing a lot more lines at the collaborative level."

Once information from the collaborative trials is passed on to the PRRCG, it is considered along with agronomic and disease information collected from the public co-operative trials. The co-operative trials also include a preliminary quality evaluation component, organized by the GRL. BMBRI members support the GRL in this process by carrying out micro-malting trials and generating data.

The Brewing and Malting Barley Research Institute has supported the development of world-class malting barley varieties in Canada since 1948. BMBRI's core activities include evaluating new malting barley varieties and funding research that assists malting barley development.

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