Researchers at the Scottish Crop Research Institute are attempting to improve the quality of winter malting barley for distilling by transferring some of the improvements seen in spring barley to the winter crop.

The distilling sector required barley with a low grain nitrogen, an absence of glycosidic nitrile (GN), and to produce a higher level of spirit yield, Bill Thomas explained. “But historically winter barley doesn’t give these characteristics.”

And while breeders had been able to make a 3-4% increase in extract potential of spring varieties, there was little evidence of similar progress in the winter crop, apart from the recent exception of Flagon.

“On average the winter crop produces around 10% fewer litres of alcohol per tonne of barley than the spring crop.”

It raised the question of whether the difference was genetic or environmental, he said. “The winter crop has more time to extract nitrogen from the ground and put into grain, so achieving the malting spec is harder.”

To test that SCRI has crossed Triumph spring barley into Pearl winter barley and comparing performance of the crosses when grown either in spring or winter trials.

“The preliminary results suggest there is no significant difference in malt extracts between spring and winter lines.”

Using DNA fingerprint techniques, the researchers could identify lines with comparable quality to spring types, he said. “The ultimate aim is to breed a winter variety suitable for distilling.”

But that could take up to 15 years to come through the system, he warned.