Australia: Western Australia’s Department of Agriculture will commercialise a new variety of malting barley

The Western Australia’s Department of Agriculture announced on October 25 that it prepares 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 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.

Dr Li said “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”

“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 stated 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.

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