A QUIET round of Barley Australia malt accreditation announcements was headlined by the news that Intergrain's boom herbicide tolerant barley line Maximus has made it through to the next round of trials.
Barley Australia accreditation is required for varieties to be officially sold as a malt cultivar.
Executive chairperson at Barley Australia Megan Sheehy said a lack of available seed had hampered the progress of several varieties through the malt evaluation process.
"Stage two trials for the Leabrook and Alestar varieties could not take place due to a lack of seed in 2019 and both will continue their stage two evaluation when possible," Dr Sheehy said.
Alestar, distributed by AGF Seeds, is designed for growth in high rainfall zones, while Leabrook, a Seednet line, is bred featuring material from the popular Commander variety.
Dr Sheehy said at this stage it was anticipated there would be a shortage of seed of both varieties to do the work with seed from the latest and that trials were likely to resume in 2021 with seed from the 2020-21 season.
She said a final recommendation on their suitability as malt lines would be likely in March next year after trial work the month before.
Following Maximus into stage two was the acid tolerant line Buff, also bred by Intergrain, but it has run into trouble with seed availability so the stage two research will not take place until 2021.
While there was good news for several breeding and seed distribution businesses the trials marked the end of the line for several others.
Dr Sheehy said both the Biere and Maltstar varieties had been withdrawn from the evaluation process after the 2019 trials.
Meanwhile, the lack of seed also impacted the Traveler, Bottler and Kiwi varieties, with stage one trials to resume when the seed is available.
Along with that, Barley Australia has accepted three new candidates for malting evaluation which will start stage one accreditiation either this year or next year.