United Kingdom: Researchers creating new winter barley varieties suitable for distilling

Scientists at the Scottish Crop Research Institute are working on improving the quality of winter malting barley for distilling by transferring some of the qualities of the spring barley to the winter crop varieties, Farmers Weekly Interactive informed on July, 14.

The distilling sector is using barley with low grain nitrogen, no glycosidic nitrile (GN) and able to produce a higher level of spirit yield, Bill Thomas explained. "But historically winter barley doesn't give these characteristics."

And while selectionists had been able to offer a 3-4% increase in extract potential of spring barley varieties, there was little evidence of similar progress in the winter crop, apart from the recent exception of Flagon.

"On average the winter varieties produce around 10% fewer litres of spirits per tonne of barley than the spring varieties."

So the researchers asked themselves whether the difference was genetic or environmental, Mr. Thomas said. The winter crop has more time to extract nitrogen from the ground and put into grain, so achieving the malting spec is harder.

To test that SCRI has crossed Triumph spring barley into Pearl winter barley and compared the performance of the crosses when grown either in spring or winter trials.

"The preliminary results suggest there is no significant difference in malt extracts between spring and winter lines," Mr. Thomas said.

Using DNA fingerprint techniques, the scientists could identify lines with comparable quality to spring types, he said. "The ultimate aim is to breed a winter variety suitable for distilling."

But that could take up to 15 years to come through the system, he warned.

16 July, 2010