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It’s a Belter

Toby Hogsbjerg Belter
It’s a Belter
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A new variety of malting barley has made its appearance on the market which, so far, is performing well in trials, the laboratory and the field, The variety Belter is a product of a new company on the UK seed breeding scene, SECOBRA Research.

According to spring barley breeder Paul Bury of SECOBRA, Belter has performed consistently over a number of differing seasons. “Belter offers stiffer straw, higher specific weight and better quality, especially for distilling than market leader Laureate. In SECOBRA’s testing over the last two years, Belter has shown itself to be more widely adapted than Laureate, robust in the field and has potential to be developed across Europe and beyond.”

Laura Beaty
Laura Beaty

Seed Grain Director for MSP Agriculture, Laura Beaty said; “Belter is still quite new to the recommended list and is now under trial for malting potential. Belter has come on to the recommended list, as it has got really strong yield performance across all the regions. Agronomically, it looks like a variety that is going to appeal to farmers. In terms of the preliminary malting data that we have seen so far, the micro malt samples have all looked promising.

“From our point of view at Simpsons Malt we then look to put Belter into our first level of evaluation of field scale trialling. This year we had a handful of growers spread across Scotland, that have grown a commercial malting crop of C2 seed which will be malted over the next 6 months. We have a few distilling partners we work with that are quite happy to study and work with new material and there is enough interest for them to look at this new variety. Essentially all we want to see if it lives up to the results we have on paper at the moment. This will be the first big test of the variety and the results we have seen so far will only tell us so much as they have been done on a smaller scale and we haven’t got the same geographic spread. Paul Bury the breeder has a proven track record of bringing new varieties onto the market so we are looking forward to seeing how Belter performs”

Farm manager Toby Hogsbjerg from Swaffham in Norfolk
Toby Hogsbjerg

Farm manager Toby Hogsbjerg from Swaffham in Norfolk grows seed barley for ADM and this year was asked to grow 21ha of Belter. Toby has been manager of the 940ha Wicken farm for six years and is not averse to trying new and inventive methods and has an impressive list of awards to back up his innovative approach to farming.

The estate is ringfenced and has a wide ranging portfolio of crops including wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beet, spring barley, onions and peas.

“The 21ha of Belter was drilled in the middle of March at a rate of 171kg/ha” said Toby. We put 285kg of 15.6 : 14.6 : 14.6 fertiliser and treated it with some Pre-em Liberator and pendimethalin. This was followed by 90kg of nitrogen in early April and two treatments of Jaunt fungicide in May and June. There was very little disease in the crop, despite the limited and cheap fungicide programme. We were able to harvest the crop in the first week of August and it yielded a healthy 7.66t/ha”.

SECOBRA and the seed industry are excited by the potential of Belter and the outcomes of the macro sale tests due in 2025.