Throughout harvest 2024, we are updating our handy map with the latest data from 2024’s AHDB spring barley Recommended List harvest results.

Use the map below to find the five highest-yielding spring barley varieties at your nearest trials site.

See also: Harvest 2024: The 5 top-yielding winter barley varieties map

Spring barley summary

Results from five fungicide-treated Recommended List (RL) spring barley trials have been published.

The trials are in Kent, Glamorgan, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Highland Scotland. 

The average yield of the control varieties is 8.76 t/ha, well above the average five-year mean of 7.87 t/ha, though with a lot of variation between trials.

There are 21 fungicide-treated trials so this represents just an early view, though it reflects early results from commercial harvests.

2024 season

Most varieties have performed close to their five-year averages in 2024 thus far.

Highest yielding at 107% of controls is Bounty, which has been given provisional approval for brewing by the Malting Barley Committee (MBC).

Just behind this on 106% is Belter, which has been given provisional approval for brewing and malt distilling. Both were newly recommended last year.

Behind this is Gambit on 104%, which is not being progressed by the MBC so has been re-classified as a feed variety and will be reviewed as a feed by the RL committee in November.

Five varieties are on 103% of controls: Firefoxx; Diviner, which is provisionally approved for malt distilling; Aquarius, which is provisionally approved for brewing use and was newly recommended last year; Olsen, which is provisionally approved for brewing and malt distilling and was newly recommended last year; and Laureate.  

Tennyson, which was given full approval for malt distilling by the MBC in the spring, is on 102%.

The other newly recommended variety, Munro, is not being progressed by the MBC so has been re-classified as a feed variety. It is on 102% in 2024.

The only current feed variety on the RL is Hurler which is on 102% so far in 2024, while the Null-Lox described variety CB Score is on 100% and the described grain distilling variety Fairing is on 94%. 

With only around a quarter of the trials in, these results should be considered as preliminary. Things could change significantly yet.