The Building Better Barley Podcast

The Influence of preceding legumes and nitrogen management on malt barley yield and quality across Canada

Part of the challenge of growing malting barley is managing protein levels in the crop. Malt standards require a specific level of protein in the crop and protein levels can be affected by a number of factors including the use of nitrogen fertilizer and the soil.

Advances in breeding tools & technology w/ Professor Francois Belzile

Several projects in the current cluster aimed to make our pre-breeding game stronger. As we wrap up the current research, here’s an update on the gains we’ve made in terms of genotyping, phenotyping, DNA markers, pathogen variations, and just breeding generally in these modern times.

Exciting new varieties on the horizon

As we wrap up the current research cluster, a look at some of the promising new Canadian varieties expected from breeders’ efforts to date/their benefits over previous varieties, and when they might be available to farmers.

Episode 5: Understanding Canadian malting barley with Dr. Yueshu Li

Today we are talking about a very interesting topic – malting barley and how specific characteristics of the barley affect the end product – beer! We’re also going to discuss how Canadian malting barley has evolved over the past couple decades to overcome malting challenges and meet growing end-user demands.  And we have the Canadian expert on this topic here with us to discuss!

Episode 4: Barley as Feed with Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra

Today we are talking about an exciting area of barley research – barley as feed. When we talk about barley we often think of beer but there’s a strong and growing case for the benefits of barley as animal feed. And the Canadian research industry has long been working on developing that case. Our guest today is just one of the researchers currently leading a barley cluster project focused on proving the benefits of barley as feed for swine diets.