SPRING BARLEY SURPRISE

With sugar beet and late-harvested Brussels sprouts in the rotation, Norfolk cereal grower Jeremy Hancock has to have some spring barley in his cropping line-up, accepting its lower yield potential out of necessity. But to his great surprise and delight last year’s spring crop of newly recommended euro-malting barley, Prestige outyielded his winter barleys by a handsome margin. And this despite being grown on his poorest land.

“Until about 10 years ago we grew malting types, such as Triumph, but the legacy of high nitrogen residues from previous beet, vegetable and pea crops made this an unacceptably risky business,” explained Mr Hancock who farms 320ha (800acre) White House Farm at Fring near Docking.

As well as 38 ha (95 acres) of spring barley the cropping on the light-land farm includes 68ha (170 acres) of Maris Otter and Fanfare winter barley, 56ha (140 acres) of Claire and Equinox winter wheat, 48ha (120 acres) sugar beet, 36ha (90 acres) of Brussels sprouts, 24ha (60 acres) of marrowfat peas, and some cabbages.

“Even with no applied fertiliser our spring barley used to suffer from the residual N, so rather than risk ending-up with low priced feed crops, we decided to add value by growing it for seed,” he pointed out. “With current prices, a 2.25t/acre (5.6 t/ha) crop of feed barley would give us no profit. However, a seed crop provides a workable margin.

“We grow winter malting barleys because grain N levels don’t pose problems two years after the peas in our rotation. We also choose varieties with malting potential for our spring crop. This means that, nitrogens permitting, we have a safety net if a crop fails to meet seed contract specifications.

“We used to grow Optic in the spring slot, but last year we switched to the variety making such an impression on the continent, Prestige. “Optic didn’t do us badly in 2001 at 2.25-2.4 t/acre (5.6-5.9t/ha). But it never seemed to yield as well as it should, mainly because we lost so many ears before the combine could get in. I reckon we were easily losing as much as 0.5t/acre (1.2t/ha).”

The White House Farm Prestige followed sugar beet on two fields. On one the sugar crop was cleared in reasonable time, but the harvester only moved out of the other on March 4 – two months later than ever before.

After ploughing the easy-working free-draining soil soon dried out though and, following his grand-father`s advice not to sow too soon, Jeremy Hancock drilled the variety at 154kg/ha (140lbs/acre) into a reasonable seedbed after the Cheltenham Festival, between March 16 and 23. The crop came through very quickly and impressed from the outset.

“I’ve never seen spring barley look so well in early April. It had a good colour and was full of growth and vigour. By early May it was obvious it would yield well so I decided we could afford to give it an extra 20 units of N to take the overall amount to 100 units/acre.

“We mixed manganese sulphate with the first fungicide treatment on May 15 and went in the following day with a wild oat herbicide. We applied a second fungicide in mid-June to mop up any remaining mildew and Rhynchosporium.”

Under this regime, the crop stood up to the summer storms with no sign of lodging whatsoever, and was ready for harvesting at about the same time as the wheat in mid-August. This worked well as the barley was combined in the mornings while Mr Hancock waited for the wheat to dry out.

“When we combined the Prestige I was amazed how quickly the grain tank filled up,” he said. “It was clear we had a heavy crop on our hands. In fact, we averaged 2.75 t/acre (6.8 t/ha) from the lightest land on the farm, having never got more than 2.25t/acre (5.6 t/ha) from this field in the past.

“This was a superb result. Not only did the variety give us 0.5t/acre (1.2 t/ha) more than our previous best spring barley crop, it even out-yielded the winter barleys we grew on better land. Last season`s Fanfare did 2.5t/acre (6.1t/ha) while the Otter gave us 2t (4.9 t/ha).”

Jeremy Hancock was also delighted with the sample off the combine - big and bold grain with an attractive colour. Subsequent analysis showed a high specific weight, just 3% screenings and 98% germination.

“With the right quality to meet European brewers’ needs, it’s clear Prestige has a big future as malting barley,” he concluded. “I shall certainly be growing it again this year. And if it performs as well for other growers I can see it taking over as the UK`s favourite malting barley in pretty short order.”