UK: Scotland’s spring barley acreage forecast to increase by 15,000 ha this year

Estimates that there would be a massive increase in the tonnage of spring barley sown this year were firmly marked down on March, 28 by Keith Headridge, commercial director of Scotgrain Agriculture, who source for Bairds Malt, Scotsman.com reports.

Speaking at an open day in Arbroath, he estimated 305,000 acres of spring barley would be sown in Scotland in the coming weeks and compared this with the 290,000 hectares last year.

Admitting that his estimate was lower than those made by other commentators, he said: “Firstly, the extra area won’t all be sown in malting varieties. Some of the land simply won’t be fit to go into any crop this spring. Winter wheat will be taken out in some cases but on heavy land it might not be easy to make a seedbed again and the best option will be to leave the land fallow.”

With the temperature down in single figures and the land still very wet, he pointed out the weather from now on would have a big influence.

“Remember the average spring barley yield last year was only 4.8 tonnes per hectare,” he said.

Headridge believed that, although it would be a late sowing season, that need not necessarily be detrimental as long as the drills were out by the middle of April.

He estimated that less than 1 per cent of the Scottish barley crop was already in the ground.

On their three sites at Pencaitland, Arbroath and Inverness, Bairds handle between 210,000 and 230,000 tonnes of barley per year with around half the tonnage handled through the Arbroath plant.

The company has invested €30 million in constructing what they claimed to be one of the most advanced maltings in Europe.

Running alongside the original plant at Arbroath is the new tower system, a state-of-the art construction almost entirely made of stainless steel and with fully computerised control systems.

Specifications for mainstream malting barley are tight with a minimum germination of 98 per cent and maximum nitrogen level of 1.65 per cent. These are industry standards as is the requirement for a maximum of 10 per cent screenings over a 2.5mm screen.