Some of the best growers in Western Canada say good fortune is the key to having their barley selected for malting year after year.
“It’s mostly luck,” said John Mezei of Bow Island, Alta., who was named grand champion at the 2002 Malting Barley Quality Competition organized by the Barley Development Council in Winnipeg.
Blake Nestibo of Goodlands, Man., who produced the best quality six-row malting barley in Manitoba, also took little credit for the feat.
“It’s 80 percent luck,” he said.
But Michael Brophy, Canadian Wheat Board senior program manager for malting barley market development, said they are both too modest.
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“There is a difference between the good growers and the growers who don’t get barley selected every year,” said Brophy.
“These growers do a lot of hands-on management of the crop.”
Brophy said this competition, which gave awards to six farms that produce the best two-row and six-row malting barley in various regions, is an attempt to encourage farmers to take malting barley seriously.
Brophy said the wheat board could sell more malting barley if producers grew more top quality crop. About 2.3 million tonnes are usually sold by the board, but Brophy said the CWB thinks it could sell 3.3 million tonnes.
At a $30-$35 premium per tonne compared to feed barley, that extra million tonnes would put more money in farmers’ pockets.
Prairie farmers produce about eight million tonnes of malting barley varieties per year, but only 30-35 percent is selected. When Harrington barley was a major variety, the selection rate was even lower.
“We want more selected,” said Brophy. “We know we can market more malting barley if better quality can be produced.”
Brophy said about 75 percent of barley acres in Western Canada are seeded to malting varieties, but many producers don’t pay attention to the crop while it is growing or when harvesting it.
The farmers who get the best results treat malting barley with care.
“We know that a number of the malting barley growers that consistently get malting barley selected look at saving their malting barley crop first,” said Brophy.
Mezei and Nestibo fit that profile. Each treats malting barley as a priority, using high quality seed and watching crop development.
Mezei, who farms in the arid area near Medicine Hat, Alta., seeds early so he can harvest early. This year that practice saved him from harvest rains.
“Two days later and we wouldn’t be here,” said Mezei.
“We just make it a habit to seed early and to get it off early.”
Mezei has grown malting barley for 25 years and only once has he failed to have it selected.
Nestibo farms in southwestern Manitoba, a wet area infested with fusarium.
“It’s a big, black blotch,” is how Nestibo describes the fungus situation at home.
Yet he is able to grow high quality malting barley.
He credits a rotation of barley after sunflowers to keep fusarium at bay on his farm.
“For whatever reason, it seems to work,” said Nestibo.
“It’s a lot better than following canola or flax.”
Brophy said top malting barley producers tend to use high quality seed, plant the crop at the most ideal times by making it a priority, conduct careful weed control, and make sure they are not damaging the crop with careless combining.
