USA: A new research laboratory for improving barley varieties
Barley growers will benefit from a new research laboratory, which is being built by the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Madison, Wis., Ag News posted on July 21.
The mission of the new lab will be many faceted with research ranging from improving the existing barley and oats varieties, to finding ways to protect the crops from fungal diseases to studying ways to improve the health compounds found in oats.
At the ground breaking ceremony on July 7, ARS Administrator Edward B. Knipling said, "This facility will provide much needed work space for Agricultural Research Service scientists who provide a critical link between barley growers and breeders and the malting and brewing industries. The new lab will be important because it is the country's only public research facility that evaluates malting barley cultivars based on their quality and usefulness."
Barley malt, which contains natural sugars, can be found in a wide range of foods, including breakfast cereals, beverages and bakery goods, besides being the basic, fermentable ingredient in beer.
In recent years food products made from oats have been found to have heart healthy properties. Scientists will use this new lab to hopefully someday enhance oats to make this hearty grain an even more significant heart-healthy food.
In 2004, the ARS scientists at Madison assessed more than 5,000 different malting barley breeding lines. This date will help breeders develop new, high-quality cultivars for U.S. farmers. Other work at the Madison lab focuses on finding new ways to bolster the crop's own protection against attack from costly fungal diseases, like Fusarium head blight in barley and blast on rice.
At this time, the ARS scientists in the Cereal Crop Research Unit share an outdated 1948 laboratory. This new facility will have more than twice the square footage of the current lab, and will house about 50 employees, including seven full-time research scientists. The new facility is expected to be completed in July 2006, at a cost of $11.3 million.
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