Australia: UK malting barley variety tested in Australia

A new malting barley variety, bred in the UK, is seeking malt accreditation in Australia, The Weekly Times Now posted on November, 2.

Oxford barley was launched at the Southern Farming Systems field day at Inverleigh last week.

The variety was imported from the UK five years ago as just a packet of seeds and has undergone five years of breeding and testing with PlantTech.

Barley program research manager Ian Edwards said Oxford was chosen as it had a good all-round disease package. He said it was resistant to mildew, leaf rust, spot form net blotch and net form net blotch and had moderate resistance to scald.

Mr Edwards said the variety yielded well.

"In trials last year, there was only 60 per cent of the normal rainfall and it out-yielded Hindmarsh by 8 per cent, Buloke by 18 per cent and Gairdner by 28 per cent at Inverleigh, Dunkeld and Mininera," Mr Edwards said.

Mr Edwards said Oxford had very good straw strength, larger kernel size and good test weights.

"It's a high rainfall variety," he said.

"If people are in an area of say 300mm and below, they would probably want a shorter season variety.

He said the variety had undergone malt testing with Malt Europe, Joe White Maltings and Kirin Malt.

"Oxford is being advanced into stage one accreditation by Barley Australia," Mr Edwards said.

"It has a very good chance of receiving malt classification."

04 November, 2009