September/
October 1998
Barley Brewings
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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
EU and imported barley buyer get the message
Barley growers (in photo from left to right) Robert Ferebee, Halliday, ND; Larry Stang, Regent, ND; Gerald Lacey, Campbell, MN; and Lance Gaebe, executive director of the ND Grain Growers Association, joined other US barley growers in the rain this past summer to protest European subsidized feed barley sales into the US, at the grain unloading dock near Stockton, Calif. The uproar by US barley growers about the sale during depressed US grain prices garnered attention from top US trade officials, resulting in a letter of reprimand to the EU by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and a retaliatory announcement by USDA Secretary Dan Glickman for the sale of 30,000 metric tons of US barley to Algeria, Cyprus, and Norway under the Export Enhancement Program.
In a strange twist of fate shortly after the sale, the buyer of the subsidized EU barley, Penny-Newman, had the roof blown off its Corcoran, Calif. Mill from a storm, which resulted in the walls collapsing and the city condemning the entire structure. The company was forced to find a home in other feed channels for the imported barley destined for the Corcoran plant- at prices that fell lower after the shipment.
Gunnerson Chair of NCI
Chuck Gunnerson, Ada, a director on the board of the Minnesota Barley Research and Promotion Council, is new chairman of the Northern Crops Institute. Located on the campus of NDSU in Fargo, NCI is funded in part by commodity groups in four states, including the MBRPC, to educate foreign buyers and users how to purchase and process US barley and other northern-grown crops.
Minnesotas hosts 1998 AMBA barley tour
The Minnesota Barley Research and Promotion Council hosted the American Malting Barley Association's barley tour, held shortly into the 1998 barley harvest to give U.S. barley users a preview of barley quality and to interact with barley producers. The tour's first day included a briefing on Minnesota barley research at the Northwest Experiment Station in Crookston, funded in part by the Minnesota barley checkoff. At an evening reception at the University of Minnesota-Crookston afterward, in the photo on the right side of the table, from top left is Jerry Franckowiak, NDSU two-row barley breeder; Mike Seeger, Red Lake Falls, MN; and Curt Knutson, Fisher, MN. Seeger and Knutson both serve on the MBRPC board.
AMBA reply to MN barley grower questions on DON
Mike Davis, executive director of the American Malting Barley Association, responded to several questions put forth by Minnesota barley growers during the 1998 barley harvest, which was again plagued by vomitoxin, a contaminating byproduct of scab.
Does Vomitoxin infect just the outside of a wheat and barley kernel, or does it invade the inside as well? If it's just the outside, why can't the outer part of the kernel be removed and pearled barley used for malting?
AMBA's Davis: It is the Fusarium fungus, not just vomitoxin (DON) in the barley that we are concerned about. We can wash the DON out in the first step of malting, called steeping, where the barley is soaked in tanks of water for up to 24 hours. However, the Fusarium fungus is still in the seed. When the barley is grown in the malt bed after steeping, the Fusarium also grows producing new DON which cannot be removed and is present in the finished malt after kilning.
Fusarium infections can apparently vary, sometimes it may be just in the husk or in both the husk and into the endosperm and other seed components. The husk cannot be removed because it is needed in the malting process. De-hulled barley will not produce good malt and will stick together, making a big mess. In addition, the brewers need the hull from the malt. The husks settle to the bottom of the tank and serve as the filter to produce clear malt extract, which is called wort.
Isn't there something maltsters can do to kill or control vomitoxin so the barley can be used for malting?
AMBA's Davis: Many treatments were examined by malting companies and in research AMBA funded at NDSU. None were effective or if they were, they left a chemical residue in the malt which affected processing & flavor or a pesticide residue, which cannot be allowed. n