A new feed barley variety developed at the University of Saskatchewan is turning heads south of the border.
Barley breeder Brian Rossnagel of the university’s Crop Development Centre said CDC Austenson, a high yielding two-row feed variety that was recently registered in Canada, is now posting impressive yield results across the western United States.
It was the top-yielding two-row barley variety at 16 sites in Western Canada during pre-registration trials in 2006 and 2007.
The variety has since been entered into similar trials in the U.S., Rossnagel said, and preliminary data shows impressive results at test sites from Minnesota to the Pacific Northwest.
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“I just received the first preliminary round of data from those tests, and I was very pleased to see that CDC Austenson was the number one yielder in those trials across the United States,” he said.
“So it does look like a good feed variety.”
Other CDC varieties entered in the U.S. trials include CDC Meredith and CDC Reserve.
CDC Austenson was named after Herman Austenson, a CDC director and head of the U of S plant sciences department from 1975-1983.
Austenson was one of several new barley varieties that Rossnagel highlighted recently when he and Agriculture Canada plant breeder David Gehl outlined the most notable new barley lines coming out of their breeding programs.
In addition to Austenson, Rossnagel talked about a hulless feed barley variety, CDC Carter, which he described as a smut resistant version of CDC McGwire. Carter is well suited to conventional and organic production systems.
Another recently registered variety, CDC ExPlus, is among the first hulless barley varieties aimed specifically at malting markets. It was registered last March.
Hulless malting barley is a new concept in Canada and its future in domestic and international malting barley markets has yet to be determined.
Rossnagel has worked on hulless malting varieties with Agriculture Canada barley breeder Bill Legge and Canadian Grain Commission grain quality analyst Mike Edney.
“The three of us sat down … and decided that while the industry wasn’t sure that they were going to be ready for these (hulless malting varieties) or whether they even wanted them, it is that good old chicken and egg situation,” Rossnagel said.
“When you did go and talk about it with (the industry), they said: ‘well, there really isn’t any supply.’ So we decided that we would go forward … and we developed this plan to release upon the world hulless barley for malting purposes.”
CDC ExPlus was one of two new hulless malting lines supported for registration last spring.
The other is a yet-to-be registered Agriculture Canada line known as HB705.
Rossnagel said ExPlus offers agronomic and disease resistance packages similar to or slightly better than CDC McGwire but has better malting quality in terms of enzyme activity and protein levels.
He said the variety doesn’t have a marketing agent, but one is likely to be in place this spring by the time breeder seed is available.
There are other promising barley lines that have not yet been put forward for registration.
HB08305 is a specialty high-amylose food barley line with high levels of beta glucan.
“One of the areas that we’ve been working on in the food barley side are what we call waxy starch barleys with very high levels of beta glucan, which, at this point, is still the component that the food industry is most interested in capturing,” Rossnagel said.
“Although the food industry does get lots of other good things from food barley, the real driver at the moment is higher beta glucan so that they (food processors) can have higher soluble dietary fibre per serving … in the products that they are trying to sell.”
Unique starch characteristics in the line make it well suited for use in food products aimed at consumers with Type 2 diabetes.
HB08305 is the first line of its kind to be developed in Canada, but because of its unique characteristics, it will probably be aimed at niche food markets and is unlikely to command large acreage in Western Canada, Rossnagel added.
TRO7113 is a high enzyme two-row malting line from the CDC with yield and maturity similar to Copeland and malting quality similar to Metcalfe and Kendall.
TRO7114, another high enzyme CDC malting line, is similar to TRO7113 but with slightly better field performance.
TRO7113 and TRO7114 completed co-op trials in 2008 and were entered in collaborative malting quality trials in 2008 and 2009.
Rossnagel said data from the malting quality trials will help determine which of the two varieties is put forward for registration this year.
“When we see that final data, we will be looking to release one of those lines but I don’t see us releasing both,” he said.
HB08031 and HB08034 are a pair of hulless CDC lines with normal starch, low beta glucan and good malt quality. The lines have potential in food, feed and malting markets.
There are also notable Agriculture Canada barley varieties that were registered last year:
Norman is a two row malting variety developed in collaboration with the U of S. It is a reselection of CDC Kendall with a similar agronomic package but improved reaction to fusarium.
Major, a two row malting variety derived from a cross of Rivers and Newdale, offers good disease and agronomic packages, but Gehl said market potential will hinge on acceptance by the malting industry.
TRO6294 is a high yielding, two row line with good agronomics and a good disease resistance package that includes resistance to spot blotch. It was among the top yielding two row lines in regional variety trials conducted in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in 2009.
Norman will be distributed by FP Genetics, while Major will be distributed by Viterra.
HB122, another promising Agriculture Canada line, could be put forward for registration next month when the Prairie Grain Development Committee holds its annual recommending meetings in Saskatoon.
HB122 is a two row hulless milling line that offers marginally higher yield potential than milling check Millhouse, slightly earlier maturity, improved lodging resistance, improved kernel characteristics, improved foliar disease package and improved flour and dough characteristics.
Recent changes to the registration process require new barley lines to complete two years of pre-registration testing rather than three.
Rossnagel said the changes will reduce costs associated with varietal development and allow plant breeders to bring promising new varieties to market more quickly.
