Scots Chariot fears
Scots Chariot fears
A LEADING maltster is so worried that the Scottish spring barley crop is becoming dominated by Chariot, it has launched a special contract and a competition to encourage greater uptake of Derkado.
"We are concerned that Prisma is becoming outclassed and has only one year left as a major variety. That leaves Chariot dominating the crop, which is liable to split some years," says David Sole of United Distillers. "While we wait for newcomers like Landlord and Chalice, we want to boost the area of Derkado this year. There were 46,000t of the variety in Scotland last year and we bought 75% of it. This time we would like to buy 20,000t in the north, 10,000t in central Scotland, and 15,000t in the south," he says.
United Distillers is to issue a special contract for Derkado and three regional competitions for the best sample of the variety. A weekend for two at Gleneagles and a case of malt whisky are the prize. *