News section
home news forum careers events suppliers solutions markets resources directories advertise contacts search site plan
 
.
Gairdner and Baudin surpass Stirling as the most popular barley varieties grown in Western Australia

.

South Perth, Western Australia
February 22, 2007

Western Australia’s barley landscape has changed with Gairdner and Baudin overtaking Stirling as the most popular varieties grown in the State.

After dominating the barley acreage since 1984, Stirling has fallen behind Baudin and Gairdner, each with sowing areas of 23 per cent in 2006 compared to Stirling at 21 per cent.

Department of Agriculture and Food barley researcher Blakely Paynter said the area sown to Stirling had dropped rapidly over the last six years following the release of new high quality malting varieties.

“In the late 1980s, Stirling dominated production and accounted for more than 80 per cent of barley plantings. In 2001, it covered 64 per cent of plantings and has since decreased by eight per cent per year.

“In the higher rainfall areas, growers have made the shift to the malting varieties Gairdner and Baudin because of their higher grain yield potential. In other areas, Stirling has been displaced by the malting variety Hamelin and the feed barley variety Mundah.”

Mr Paynter said the swing to Mundah and feed barley in general had been associated with a run of variable seasons which had affected the probability of malting barley being received as malting.

He said the area sown to varieties with a feed classification had increased from 13 per cent in 2001 to around 20 per cent in 2006.

“The decline in area sown to Stirling is expected to continue over coming seasons as markets chase malting barley varieties with higher malting quality and the latest malting variety Vlamingh becomes more widely sown,” Mr Paynter said.

“There are also new feed varieties such as Fleet Australia and Hindmarsh that are showing promise in variety evaluation trials for sowing in Western Australia.”

Table 1. Percent of barley acreage sown to different barley varieties (based on CBH grower returns).
 

 

% of barley area sown to each variety by season

Variety

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

Gairdner

17

25

31

25

23

23

Baudin

0

0

1

13

21

23

Stirling

64

55

46

33

26

21

Mundah

4

5

7

10

11

13

Hamelin

0

0

0

4

7

10

Yagan

1

2

3

5

5

3

Schooner

7

6

5

3

2

2

Fitzgerald

1

1

1

1

1

1

Molloy

1

0

0

1

1

1

Barque

0

0

0

1

1

1

Other feed

6

5

5

4

2

3

Malt varieties

87

86

84

79

80

79

Feed varieties

13

14

16

21

20

21

 

 

 

 

The news item on this page is copyright by the organization where it originated - Fair use notice

Other news from this source


Copyright © SeedQuest - All rights reserved