The Crop Doctor, GRDC

Queenslanders love their XXXX, so why is it that the Sunshine State's graingrowers aren't as keen on growing barley ­ which produces the malt for making beer ­ as their counterparts south of the border?

Barley scientists and a dozen or so industry advisers discussed the question in Dalby the other day, at a forum called to assess current barley production issues and to discuss the latest developments in the Northern Barley Improvement Program.

Program leader and Hermitage Research Station barley breeder David Poulsen said Queensland's Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (QDPI&F), NSW Agriculture and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) had committed a total $3 million to the program.

Different components of the program and associated research involved molecular biology, cereal chemistry and plant pathology as well as barley breeding, agronomic support and industry development

The challenge, according to QDPI barley development officer Kim McIntyre, was that many graingrowers ­ more so in Queensland than in New South Wales ­ continued to see barley as "the poor cousin" in winter cropping, not always given the same level of attention as other crops.

The barley crop in the GRDC's northern region ­ Queensland and NSW north of the Macquarie River ­ can run from 600,000 to a million tonnes a year; last year it was between 700,000 and 800,000 tonnes.

Barley is grown as a dual purpose crop in the region, with about 75 per cent being used as feed grain and the remainder going to provide most of the malt for the nation's breweries. (Southern and Western Australia are major producers of malt barley, but it generally goes to export.)

A decade ago the production of malting barley in the northern region was split evenly between NSW and Queensland; now two thirds to three quarters of it comes from NSW.

"One of the changes in Queensland is that barley production is tending to move west, out of the Darling Downs because of the development of nematode resistant wheats and the growing popularity of cotton and sorghum," Ms McIntyre said.

"We know current barley varieties can yield well over 7/t/ha but we are not achieving this consistently under commercial conditions. An agronomy project that began in 2002 aims to provide better advice on how to achieve consistent high yields and quality.

"The market is strong for domestic malting barley, while demand from feedlotters is greater than the supply because barley is such a good feed grain.

"We have exciting, high yielding varieties like Mackay coming through the system but we
need to maximise that yield potential, perhaps by presenting new releases along with variety specific management packages for frost, screenings and disease."

The Crop Doctor, Peter Reading, is managing director of the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC)