Case Study: Belter, Dunbar –Belter makes its mark in Scotland’s malting heartland

After several successful years with Laureate, Natasha Findlay is beginning to think about what might come next. With the 2025 spring barley area at Pitcox Farm capped at 44 acres by rotation, she decided last season that she had an opportunity to try promising new variety Belter.

Natasha farms 650 acres, of which 500 acres are down to arable cropping, with her mother and sister at Stenton near Dunbar in East Lothian.

“We have a fairly standard rotation – winter barley, oilseed rape, wheat, wheat, peas, then wheat, wheat, spring barley, winter barley, and historically this has been a good malting barley area,” says Natasha.

Grain storage constraints mean the family can only grow one variety of spring barley and so prefer to try new varieties when the crop area is rotationally at its lowest. The farm’s winter and spring barley crops are grown on three-year rolling malting contracts with Simpsons Malt.

“We were asked last year if we might be willing to try a new variety that had been giving some promising results and we thought, well why not? The 40-odd acres of spring barley we had in the rotation in 2025 wasn’t a big acreage, so we didn’t see it as a high risk.

“We might have been a bit more cautious about trying something new on one of our bigger fields, but it was a relatively small spring barley year in the rotation, so we thought we’d give it a go,” says Natasha.

The Belter was drilled on March 12 into good medium loam soils that had been ploughed overwinter.

“We do use a reduced tillage system for around half of the autumn cultivations, but generally, for anything going in in the spring, we winter plough December-January time, then let the land sit and break down in the frost, before it is drilled with a power harrow/drill combination and rolled. It works well for us,” says Natasha.

In the past overwinter cover crops have been planted ahead of spring barley but create complications with nitrogen management.

“We put an oil radish in a few years ago but the problem is you don’t then really know what to do with your nitrogen,” says Natasha.

“You think the oil radish is going to pull up more nutrients from the deep soil layers and so you reduce your nitrogen but then you end up with a yield penalty because you haven’t put enough nitrogen on.

“We find a cover crop works better the following year, after the next crop, but we might go back to it ahead of spring barley because the new greening rules have just come out, and it looks like it might be worth revisiting as an option and hopefully, with the right advice, we will have a better idea how to the balance the nitrogen requirements this time round.”

P&K is applied at variable rates, based on soil mapping. The Belter also received two applications of Amidas (40%N +14% SO3) at 150kg/ha, on March 14 and April 8.

Despite a long dry spell post-drilling – there was no significant rainfall until late May – the spring barley was one of the best crops on the farm, says Natasha.

A comprehensive agronomy programme for the Belter comprised an application of IntraCrop Cearum (magnesium, copper, zinc) and IntraCrop Status (biostimulant) on April 15.

Pennant (40g/kg metsulfuron methyl +400g/kg thifensulfuron methyl) + Mattera (5g/l florasulam + 6.25g/l halauxifen-methyl (Arylex)) was applied for broad-leaved weed control on May 13, plus fungicides Ecana (cyprodinil), for rhynchosporium and net blotch + IntraCrop Cearum.

June 2 saw a second fungicide application in the form of Talius (200g/l propquinazid), Olbran (250g/lprothioconazole) and Arizona (500g/l folpet).

Combined on August 13, the Belter yielded 3.5t/acre and produced a good, bright sample in the intake pit.

“It was a good, thick, crop, with fantastic straw,” says Natasha. “We do a muck for straw swap with a neighbouring pig farm and the straw yield was really good, it certainly did a lot better than the winter barley. You could just tell by the number of bales that were coming off that it had done well. I’m pleased with how it’s done yield and quality-wise, especially in a very dry year, it would be very interesting to see what it does in even better conditions. It passed all the malting specifications with flying colours and the grain nitrogen remained low in a year where there were a lot of high nitrogens locally.”

The spring barley area at Pitcox Farm will increase to 65 acres for harvest 2026 and Natasha hopes to be growing Belter.

“The Belter was as good as we’ve had in a good year with Laureate. It looked nice in the field, and it was a good sample in the pit. Put it this way, if someone asked if I wanted to it grow again versus Laureate, I would say yes,” she says.

Pitcox Farm Belter harvest results 2025

Screenings below 2.25mm: 1.4% or below

Screenings below 2.5mm: 3-5%

Specific weight: 65-68kg/hl

Grain nitrogen: 1.4-1.5%.