WA barley growers hoping to include Spartacus and Compass in their cropping programs this year have been given a boost, after the two varieties were granted malting accreditation last week.
Barley Australia gave the varieties the seal of approval on Thursday, following their success in passing the two-stage evaluation process through the Malting and Brewing Technical Committee (MBIBTC).
The evaluation and accreditation process is recognised as the required standard for malting barley for all new Australian varieties.
Bred by InterGrain, Spartacus is a high yielding, early-maturing Clearfield barley agronomically similar to La Trobe.
Spartacus is also comparable to La Trobe in malt quality and is well suited to export markets where starch-adjunct brewing is undertaken.
Compass is a high yielding, mid-to-early maturing variety developed by The University of Adelaide.
According to Barley Australia, Compass presented as a barley with improved agronomic characteristics over Commander, with similar malt quality.
Compass is best suited to malt production for brewers with a medium fermentability, and can be utilised in both sugar and starch-adjunct brewing, making it well suited for many export and domestic markets.
Grains Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA) Barley Council chairman Lyndon Mickel said the announcement from Barley Australia was welcomed by the association.
“It does have a positive impact on the industry having a couple of new varieties, particularly for people in the case of Spartacus - people chasing another variety to use with the imidazolinone herbicide tolerance,” Mr Mickel said.
“I think you’ll find that Spartacus particularly, there’ll be significant areas grown in the Central Wheatbelt area and a lot of growers are probably looking at replacing the variety Scope with it.
“Compass will probably be more your medium type rainfall areas, I don’t believe there will be a huge amount of Compass grown.
“That’s not to say that growers won’t pick it up in different areas.”
In 2017, 3.8 million tonnes of barley was grown in WA, spread across both feed and malt grades.
According to Barley Australia close to 900,000 tonnes of malt from 1mt of barley is exported out of Australia annually, with customers in Asia accounting for 700,000t.
With the new malt varieties now an option Mr Mickel said the GIWA Barley Council would be working closely with the CBH Group and growers to incorporate Spartacus and Compass into its Pilot Barley Rationalisation Plan 2018/2019.
