USA: Klamath barley breeding program to shut down

The Klamath Basin, one of the best spring barley production areas in the West, will probably lose its public university barley breeding program The Capital Press posted on September 22.

Lynn Gallagher, the University of California's barley breeder, announced what amounts to a close-out of the most promising lines at this summer's field day. This month as Intermountain Research and Extension Center Superintendent Don Kirby gathers in grain from small plots, the exit plan is taking shape.

The UC phase-out marks the second public university withdrawal from Klamath-specific spring barley breeding. Earlier Oregon State University's Pat Hayes dropped spring barley to concentrate on winter varieties and disease resistance.

In 2004, Oregon's Klamath County harvested 16,800 acres of barley, almost all of it for the feed grain market.

Across the border in California, the combined harvest for Siskiyou and Modoc counties was 11,500 acres.

Until the drought of 2001, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reneged on water delivery within its Klamath Project, the basin was a top contract site for brewing barley. Those contracts vanished with the water, causing a shift to feed grain production.

Gallagher took over the promising spring lines from Hayes. One, now identified as UC 1171, is among the best of 20 or 30 lines being harvested this fall. Gallagher plans to increase seed production in 2007, along with that from UC 1145, a cross of Stander from the Pacific Northwest breeding program and UC 960. These two lines, Gallagher said, will be made available to growers at the July 2007 field day.

When Gallagher made his offer this year to take home a free sack of seed, just two farmers sought him out. What they wanted was UC 1135, a naked or hulless specialty barley. It's high in beta-glucan, a heart-healthy fiber.

Gallagher said one of the growers intends to try marketing UC 1135 as an ingredient in pet food. He's uncertain what the other farmer plans.

"Had not those two persons come forward, I was going to throw the line in the dumpster," he said in an e-mail interview.

Most of California's barley production - the state harvested 75,000 acres in 2004 - is concentrated in the Central Valley. Gallagher said varieties that do well in the valley generally don't thrive in the intermountain valleys of far Northern California. That means that he needs to make specific crosses for the Klamath Basin.

Funding for the Tulelake breeding is "evaporating," Gallagher said. "I am uncertain whether or not next year will be the last one there. Breeding is a long-term effort (one cycle is seven to 10 years). Interest in barley has been in a long-term decline in both Oregon and California because of competition from wheat and declining and disappearing markets."

Harry Carlson, director of the UC station, said he expects this fall's harvest of varieties rated highest by Gallagher will be enough for sewing 3- to 5-acre plots for seed increase in 2007. But until the UC lab does its cleaning and measurements this winter, a process that may take until April planting time, the exact shape of next year's program won't be known.

27 September, 2006