| Abstract: | Two sets of barley cultivar mixtures, one from cultivars grown in the UK and one from cultivars grown in Poland, were included, along with their component cultivars, in trials at the Scottish Crop Research Institute over two seasons. In the second year, two levels of nitrogen fertilisation were compared. Laboratory scale malting revealed three mixtures with extracts equal to, or significantly higher than, those of all of their components. Increased nitrogen fertilisation gave higher diastatic power, but reduced hot water extract in mixtures and component cultivars. Polish mixtures and their component cultivars showed a higher Kolbach index but a slower rate of filtration, following malt extraction, than their UK counterparts. It was concluded that the malting performance of the mixtures was largely determined by the nature of the germplasm from which they were constructed and the conditions under which they were grown. Careful selection of components should, therefore, permit development of barley mixtures acceptable for malting. |
