The Agriculture Canada Research Centre in Brandon, Man., has added three new barley varieties to the 21 it has developed since 1939.
AC Metcalfe
After plant-scale testing, the malting and brewing industry has approved AC Metcalfe. This variety, tested as TR232, is the first two-row malting barley to be released by the Brandon Research Centre.
AC Metcalfe received full registration and plant breeders’ rights in November 1997.
It underwent pedigreed seed increase in 1998 and will be available for commercial production in 1999. SeCan Association has the distribution and marketing rights.
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AC Metcalfe, widely adapted to the black and grey soil zones, has the potential to replace Harrington as the dominant malting variety grown in Western Canada.
Its most outstanding features are agronomic performance and malting quality, including three days earlier maturity than Manley, seven percent higher yield than Harrington, higher test weight and kernel plumpness than Manley, moderate-to-good resistance to the smuts, net blotch, old races of stem rust and fusarium. It has better malting quality traits than Manley and Harrington, particularly malt extract.
It was named in recognition of Dick Metcalfe’s contribution to barley breeding in Western Canada. The variety, developed by Bill Legge at Brandon, is derived from the cross AC Oxbow/Manley originally made by Metcalfe when he was a barley breeder at the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg.
TR243
A second two-row malting barley out of Bill Legge’s breeding program, TR243, received interim registration in November 1997.
It is undergoing extensive malting quality evaluation at the pilot-scale level. Further quality testing and market development will be required in 1999 and 2000 before full registration can be obtained.
Value Added Seeds Inc. will market and distribute seed of TR243 in North America.
It is widely adapted to Western Canada, particularly the eastern prairie region. Over three years of testing, it has yielded an average of eight percent more than Harrington and four percent less than Manley.
It has a favorable yield-to-maturity relationship, being two days later than Harrington and three days earlier than Manley.
It has larger, plumper kernels than either Manley or Harrington, an important characteristic in malting barley.
Its malting quality is similar to that of Manley and Harrington, except for slightly higher malt extract.
One of its outstanding features is disease resistance.
It has good resistance to all three common smuts of barley (loose, covered, and false loose smut), reducing the need for seed treatment.
It also has moderate resistance to the spot-form of net blotch and common root rot and carries the Rpg1 gene for resistance to the old races of stem rust.
AC Bacon
AC Bacon, tested as HB105, was registered as a new variety in April 1998 and will be marketed by SeCan. It is expected to be available for commercial production in 2000.
Developed by Mario Therrien, this six-row hulless barley has wide adaptation to Eastern and Western Canada with high yield and strong straw, kernel quality equal to Falcon, but no problems with neck breakage or shelling out.
These features make AC Bacon ideal for swine rations and attractive to producers targeting the expanding swine feed market.
The objectives of Therrien’s program in hulless feed development are to improve on threshing ability, kernel quality, straw strength, and disease resistance.
For more information, contact Legge or Therrien at 204-726-7650 or fax 204-728-3858.
The Brandon research centre’s website is http://res.agr.ca/bran
don/brc/welcome.htm.
