Source: The Crop Doctor, GRDC

Western Australia’s newest barley variety, the adaptable and plump-grained Vlamingh, has received the nod from the Western Region Barley Council to receive malting barley status in 2007.

With fat grains being so well liked by maltsters, Vlamingh will make a splash with brewers and help fill the beer glasses of the world’s beer drinkers, while growing the state’s robust barley industry.

GRDC supported Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia barley breeder, Dr Chengdao Li, hopes barley becomes a viable option across more of Western Australia, with such a broadly suited malting variety as Vlamingh

Western Australia accounted for 33 per cent of the national barley crop in 2004-05, with barley and malt exports totalling $513 million. The 2.4 million tonnes harvested that year represented a 20 per cent jump over the five year average.

Vlamingh breeder, Chengdao Li (photo), of the Department of Agriculture and Food, hopes Vlamingh will continue to boost Western Australia’s thriving malting barley industry.

The Grains Research and Development Corporation supported the development of Vlamingh, regarded as an all-terrain grain suited to five of Western Australia’s six ‘ag zones’.

Dr Li hopes barley becomes a viable option across even more of the state, with such a broadly suited malting variety as Vlamingh.

He estimates it will yield, on average, 12 per cent more than incumbent malting varieties Stirling and Hamelin. In good barley growing areas, where yields of two tonnes per hectare or more are common, Vlamingh will yield even better.

Although at its best in medium to high rainfall areas, Vlamingh's durability is best illustrated by its performance on alkaline duplex soils, where although it showed boron toxic spots, it still outstripped Schooner in an economic analysis.

Vlamingh is more resistant to scald, net-type net blotch and barley leaf rust than Stirling, Hamelin and Baudin and more resistant to scald and barley leaf rust than Gairdner and is therefore regarded as grower friendly variety.

The Crop Doctor is GRDC Managing Director, Peter Reading