USA: Researchers to crack barley's genetic code

The taste testers sat at long rows of tables in the Wood Center June 14 methodically munching on crackers. They ate a cracker from a baggie marked "control," sipped from a water bottle to cleanse their palates, then took a cracker from one of 12 other baggies, comparing its taste to the control's.

The crackers, baked in the University of Alaska's Cooperative Extension food product development kitchen, were all made using experimental Alaska-grown barley.

Bob Van Veldhuizen, a research technician with the UAF School of Natural Resources, has been experimenting with strains of barley for more than 10 years. He said that most of the barley grown in Delta Junction and other areas around the state is only suitable for use as cattle feed.

Barley for human consumption, a hull-less variety known as thule, has a tendency to fall over as it matures. Alaska's wet Augusts soak the thule as it lays on the ground, rotting the barley before it can be harvested. Alaska farmers who have planted thule in the past have only been able to harvest 25 percent of their crop because the rest rots in the field.

"Farmers don't like to plant it," Van Veldhuizen said of the thule. "They are putting a lot of effort into it and not getting a lot out of it."

Van Veldhuizen and his team have crossbred two varieties of barley - a hull-less variety that falls over and a hulled one that stands up well. After 10 years of experiments, evaluating hundreds of small fields of barley in Fairbanks, Delta Junction and Palmer, he said they've come up with 12 distinct hull-less varieties that stand up well and are adapted to Alaska's shorter growing season.

“With these new varieties, they are able to harvest 75 percent of the crop,” he said.

The new barley should be ready for local farmers' fields in two or three years. Since the hull-less varieties can be used in baked goods, soups and other foods, farmers should be able to fetch a higher price for their crops.

"I'm hoping that someone might see this and say, 'By golly, we can produce an Alaskan-grown product,'" Van Veldhuizen said. "Not only make a market for farmers, but make a market for someone who wants to take that barley and make something."

Of course, that means the new barley has to taste as good as the varieties currently on the market. "If it grows well but is lousy in the kitchen, it's not going to sell," Van Veldhuizen said. That's where the taste testers come in.

Van Veldhuizen asked Kristy Long, the foods specialist at the Cooperative Extension Service, to turn his barley into crackers and see if people could tell the difference between those made with his flour and those made with regular thule.

The Cooperative Extension's product development kitchen, which opened in 2004, tests Alaska products in an effort to promote local agriculture. Besides the barley crackers, the kitchen has tested reindeer meat, potatoes and wild berries.

For this test, Long said, the kitchen baked 13 different types of crackers--one with regular thule, and one each with Van Veldhuizen's 12 varieties of barley. The crackers were simple, with no seasoning or toppings, and each cracker was exactly the same as all the others except for the type of barley used.

"We try as hard as we can to keep everything consistent from each batch to the next," Long said. The cooks even add all the ingredients for each batch in the same order and beat the batter for the same amount of time.

"You can't be absolutely perfect, but we try." On June 14, 102 people sampled the crackers, marking down how similar each one was to the control group. Long will hold another round of tests in July just to make sure they have a large enough sample to go by.

This time, Long said, they were only testing the taste as it compares to regular thule. Future tests will help determine which variety tastes best, has the best texture or bakes the most evenly.

In the end, Long has the same hope as Van Veldhuizen. "Perhaps people will like this product well enough that some small business person would make crackers," she said. "To kind of create a demand for the barley flour."

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