Australia: Buff barley variety gets malting accreditation from Grains Australia

Grains Australia has accredited Buff following its submission by Western Australian-based seed company InterGrain for evaluation, Grain Central reported on March 20.

Buff barley is a quick-maturing, acid soil-tolerant and high-fermentability variety, and is intended to be grown in the lower-rainfall districts of WA’s northern and central grain-growing zones, and south-western New South Wales.

It has been grown for some years with success, but deliverable only into feed segregations ahead of its accreditation, which makes it eligible for delivery into malting segregations from the 2023-24 harvest.

Buff is being marketed as an alternative to wheat for acidic and sandy soils, and boasts higher yield and improved disease resistance when compared with the previous acid-tolerant barley, Litmus.

Buff has consistently demonstrated a yield advantage over Litmus in acidic and sandy environments, where pH is below 5.5, and a significant yield advantage in neutral soil types.

Based on 2018-22 National Variety Trial MET yield results, Buff offers an 8-10 percent yield improvement over Litmus.

InterGrain chief executive officer Tress Walmsley said Buff offered growers of barley on challenging acidic and sandy soils the possibility of increased profitability with potential malt premiums.

“The Buff malt success story reflects the hard work of InterGrain’s team, including breeder David Moody…plus growers who welcomed the opportunity to support the market development and accreditation processes over the last two seasons,” Ms Walmsley said.

Meckering, WA, grower Neil Carter has grown Buff over the past two seasons, and plans to sow most of his barley program to Buff this year.

“Buff has been a very useful tool for us on our difficult acidic soils,” Mr Carter said.

“We’ve seen it out-yielding other varieties in areas where we have acidic subsoils.

“Last season all the Buff was within malt spec; however, we didn’t have the option to deliver it as malt.

“It will be handy to have the opportunity to deliver it as a malt variety this coming harvest and provide more marketing options.”

Grains Australia has accepted applications for three new varieties for malting barley evaluation.

IGB22102T and IGB21130 have been submitted from InterGrain and Titan AX from Australian
Grain Technologies.

These varieties cover a range of adaptations and quality attributes, with Titan AX containing novel CoAxium technology, resulting in tolerance to the Group 1 QPE grass-selective herbicide.

IGB22102T is an addition to the suite of imidazolinone barley varieties available to growers.

Sufficient grain parcels of IGB22102T and Titan AX are available for the commencement of Stage One evaluation in 2023, subject to final quality checks, and will be confirmed when final programming for the year is completed in the coming weeks.

AGT varieties AGTB0244 and AGTB0318 and InterGrain’s Zena CL have successfully completed Stage One evaluation and can now proceed into Stage Two commercial evaluation trials this year.

Not enough of InterGrain’s Commodus CL was available to complete full evaluation in 2022, and its Stage Two evaluation will continue this year.

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