With supplies of two-row malting barley tight in Western Canada, farmers should be taking a close look at what they have in their bins.
Barley crops in central and northern Saskatchewan and Alberta were damaged in 2005 by rains during the harvest and by frost.
“There is quite a bit of good quality malt barley south of the Trans-Canada, but there isn’t enough to fill the markets that Canada normally fills,” said John Duvenaud of Wild Oats Grain Market Advisory.
“We don’t have the stocks, so the malt trade is taking barley at a lower spec than they would normally take.
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“If a farmer has anything that he even remotely considers might make malt, he should get a sample to two or three buyers.”
Sprouting common
Sprouting was among the consequences of the rains. That can lower the ability of the barley seed to germinate during the malting process.
“In a perfect world you stay the hell away from barley like that, but everybody was forced to use some,” said Jack Foster, director of barley procurement for Prairie Malt Ltd. in Biggar, Sask. “You try to keep it to an absolute minimum and keep the percentage low, whatever you deem you can work with.”
Mould has been another issue with the 2005 barley crop. In areas with untimely rains, a lot of grain was harvested and stored before it had a chance to adequately dry down.
“That as much as anything else is leading to the germination issues,” Foster said. “We’re finding a fair amount of barleys that are heated simply because of the elevated moisture levels.”
Farmers should act sooner rather than later if they had sprouting in the barley that holds potential for malting. Otherwise, they could be disappointed.
“By February, a lot of the barley is not going to have enough germination,” Duvenaud said. “It might have enough now, but germination declines over time and the malsters I talk to think that even by February a lot of this stuff won’t work anymore.”
Foster said 2005 marked the fifth consecutive year with a less than stellar malt barley crop in Western Canada. It has forced malsters to again extend their reach to draw in adequate supplies from prairie growers.
“We don’t know what a normal year is anymore,” Foster said. “It’s been very, very frustrating.”
