USA: Haxby replaces Lewis as central Montana barley yield standard

The 2005 growing season started off well with generally good moisture for seeding and crop establishment. The Prairie Star posted on February 15: “The crop growing conditions declined for some areas of central Montana, where fields received below average precipitation in the months of May, June and July. The end result was near average barley yields at the three central Montana off-station barley variety trials, located near Denton, Mont., Winifred, Mont., and Moccasin, Mont.

The 2005 barley yields under no-till re-crop conditions at the Moccasin and Denton research locations were near average for the top yielding varieties. However, yields of barley varieties adapted to higher rainfall and less evaporative demand, like Robust, were well below the expected yield levels.

The growing season started with good conditions at the Winifred research locations, but precipitation during the growing season was sparse and less than expected for barley seeded on fallow.

Boulder's yield topped the nursery at Winifred with a mean yield of 66.1 bushels per acre compared with MT970115's yield of 59.6 bushels per acre. The yield gap between Boulder and the rest of the nursery may reflect a chance placement as the back to back Boulder plots in second and third repetitions had yields in excess of 70 bushels and the first repetition was in the pack at 54.6 bushels per acre.

Hays, a hooded hay barley developed for forage, continued to produce yields similar to Harrington grain yields, which are generally much above other hooded forage barley.

Multi-year summaries are presented for the Moccasin and Denton research locations. The Central Ag Research Center has reduced its off-station barley trials as interest in barley production has declined. Haxby's multi-year mean yields exceeded those of the varieties selected for comparison in all cases except for Xena at Denton. Haxby is noted for its high test weights, which continued in 2005 performances.

This research was conducted in cooperation with Montana State University barley breeder Tom Blake and his research associate Pat Hensleigh. The Montana Agricultural Experiment Station and the Montana Wheat and Barley Research and Marketing committee funded the barley variety performance research.”

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