Donald Ross is pleased with his malting spring barley variety Laureate this season, since it is tillering and yielding better than older varieties as he aims for a yield of 7.5t/ha

This is his second year of growing the new variety on his farm in northern Scotland, and it now accounts for 40ha of his 52ha spring barley area – with the remainder in the older malting variety Concerto.

As he pulls up a plant with one main stem and four tillers in late May, Mr Ross says the Laureate tillers better than Concerto, which can lead to a 10% better yield than Concerto.

“The spring barley is looking good and we are looking for a yield of 7.5t/ha, and if we get a drop of rain that will certainly help,” he tells Farmer Weekly.

See also: Malting barley on heavy land pays off for Cambs grower

Mr Ross’s Rhynie farm has soils that range from blow-away sands to dark peat over old red sandstone, just outside the village of Fern in Ross-shire, close to the Scottish east coast and some 25 miles north-east of Inverness.

The 256ha farm is about two-thirds ploughable for arable crops, along with 100 suckler cows and 250 breeding ewes and access to a neighbour’s pig slurry to help feed his crops of winter wheat, spring barley and oats and also oilseed rape.