Spring Barley Recommended Varieties.

Spring barley yields have increased significantly over the past 20 years, with yields of over 9 t/ha common enough on farms in good growing years. Plant breeding has helped improvements in agronomic merit such as mildew resistance (all 10 varieties on the 2024 DAFM Rec list are classed as very resistant to mildew; scoring an 8.)

When choosing a Spring Barley variety, characteristics such as straw strength and a good specific weight are important factors to consider to meet malting specifications.

For specific malting markets, traits such as Zero-GN are important, while feed barley markets require large grain sizes for rolling. Seedtech has a very large spring barley selection program focused on malting and feed barley markets.