All about Malting
Barley
 Barley
has always been particularly important in the production
of beers and ales. Barley is the second most widely
grown arable crop in the UK with around 1.1 million
hectares under cultivation and today's varieties trace
their origins back over 10,000 years to the first farmers.
Barley has remained a
successful cereal crop because of its short growing
time and ability to survive in poor conditions. Although
it is grown throughout most of the UK it is often the
dominant arable crop in the north and west of Britain
where growing conditions are most difficult and less
favourable for wheat.
Each year the UK produces
around 6.5 million tonnes of barley. Roughly 1.5 million
tonnes are exported, 2 million tonnes are used in the
brewing and distilling trades with 3 million tonnes
being used for animal feed.
Although barley is versatile
and tolerant it is not as productive as wheat. As a
result it is often grown as the second cereal in a rotation
where potential yields are lower; for example a field
might first grow wheat, then barley, then a break crop
like sugar beet or peas before returning to wheat. Barley
can also be grown continually in the same field, a process
known as continuous cropping. This was relatively common
in the 1970s and 1980s but is rarely if ever practiced
now
The malting barley crop
we grow here, fits into our cropping rotation extremely
well. It enables us to have a period of time to clean
our soils by producing a stall seedbed. We are able
to control most of the difficult weeds that develop
in the cropping rotation during this fallow period.
This saves us money on specific weed killers and is
also good for the enviroment.
How we start the
crop off
Although the crop
is not planted until March, we have to start the weed
eradication process as soon as possible. So, as soon
as the combine has finished harvesting the previous
crop of wheat the soil is cultivated to produce what
we call a false seedbed. This encourages weeds to grow
so we have the opportunity to spray them off. Another
crop of weeds then develops over the winter period and
these in turn are sprayed off ten days before sowing
in early March.
Fertilizer
The art of growing a good
malting barley crop involves supplying enough Nitrogen
fertilizer to provide the crop with its growing needs
early in its establishment but not too much that will
increase the grain nitrogen content. So, unlike Wheat
and oilseed rape we apply only half the amount of bagged
nitrogen to get the quality our customers require and
finish up with a lower yield.
Like wheat and oilseed
rape, Barley also recieves the correct amounts of potash,
phosphates, sulphur and lime that it needs to successfully
grow.
Crop protection
Because the varieties
we grow on the farm are planted in the spring, the inputs
we need to grow the  crop
are reduced because we are only looking after the crop
for half the time compared with winter sown crops.However
we still have to remove weeds and to protect the plants
from fungal attacks.
What happens to
the harvested crop
The spring malting barley
crop normally harvested in August is mainly used for
malting.Malting is a process of wetting the barley to
encourage partial germination before drying in kilns.
Malted barley is full of flavour and used by brewers
and distillers in the production of beers and spirits
as well as in a number of other food products. The specifications
for malting are high and usually only achieved by the
lower yielding spring varieties we grow. Barley for
malting is exported around the world, often to countries
like China that have developed the western taste for
beer. If we are successful in growing the barley with
the specification that maltsters require, it will typically
attract a premium of around £15 per tonne over
feed barley varieties. So it is paramount that we use
all our skills to produce a quality product or it will
end up as low priced animal feed.
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