South Perth,
Western
Australia
October 25, 2005
The Department of
Agriculture, Western Australia is preparing to commercialise
a new malting barley variety which was recently given
provisional malting classification by the Western Malting Barley
Council.
Senior
plant breeder Chengdao Li (photo) said WABAR2175 would produce
quality malt suitable for both international markets and
domestic maltsters, but the real winners with the release of the
new variety would be barley growers.
“WABAR2175 is suited to most of Western
Australia’s grain growing regions and offers growers a number of
agronomic advantages over other malting barley varieties,” Dr Li
said.
“For example our trial data indicates that
WABAR2175 yields higher than both Gairdner and Stirling barley.
The new variety also has a plumper grain shape and stands a
better chance of being received for malting than Baudin and
Gairdner.”
Dr Li said that another bonus for growers was
that WABAR2175 also had improved levels of resistance to scald,
net type net blotch and barley leaf rust compared to Stirling,
Hamelin and Baudin.
The Department has begun the process of
commercialisation for WABAR2175 and will
appoint a seed
distribution licensee in 2006. Seed of WABAR2175 will be
available to growers for the 2007 season.
The new barley was bred by the Department of
Agriculture with support from the
Grains Research and Development
Corporation and the Western Malting Barley Council.
|