Any idea of the effects of the drought on barley?

Listening to the radio on the way in to work and they were talking about the drought and how corn prices were going to skyrocket. Naturally, that got me thinking about the effect of the drought on other things like BEER! Seems that if corn prices go up, brewers could use more barley malt if it does not have a corresponding spike in price. And if barley spikes in price, what does that mean to us as homebrewers? Anyone here follow the barley "market"?

I expect to see prices go up some on barley. However, since a lot of barley is grown and malted outside the US the price will probably be more stable than corn. I don't know enough about the barley or malting markets to know how their contracts work and how it might affect them.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

I expect to see prices go up some on barley. However, since a lot of barley is grown and malted outside the US the price will probably be more stable than corn. I don't know enough about the barley or malting markets to know how their contracts work and how it might affect them.

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Ya I think Europe is getting rain....

...and the American stuff will be more expensive....

A little googling around because I was curious which states produce the most barley.

"Barley varieties are classified as either six-row or two-row depending on the physical arrangement of the kernels on the plant. Barley is also described as hulled or hull-less by the presence of beards, or awns, covering the kernels. Six-row barley is grown primarily in North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Idaho. Two-row barley is grown in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, and California."

The drought is mostly in the central part of the counrty, missing most of the important barley states. Of course, when 1 thing goes up significantly(corn), others often follow suit.

Drought at any growth stage before grain soft dough reduces spring
barley yields, but drought during tillering or between the
boot and flowering stages causes the greatest yield reductions

but barley is still primarily a dry-land crop
Corn has a long crowing cycle and needs an insane amount of water.
Your second crop barley is usually well developed before the dry season kicks in.

amandabab said:

Drought at any growth stage before grain soft dough reduces spring
barley yields, but drought during tillering or between the
boot and flowering stages causes the greatest yield reductions

but barley is still primarily a dry-land crop
Corn has a long crowing cycle and needs an insane amount of water.
Your second crop barley is usually well developed before the dry season kicks in.

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Yes, Barley is a hardier crop than corn. Heck just look at the size of the stalk! [no pun intended]

MC

I wonder if the price of corn will cause farmers to switch to barley for their feed. Should that happen we'd most assuredly see a price hike.

There are two major factors that effect the price/demand for corn; ethanol and feed.

While there would most definitely be an increase in price in barley from a decrease in supply, the increase would be linear and proportional to the actual amount of barley in the market rather than the multi-variable corn scenario.

ebstauffer said:

I wonder if the price of corn will cause farmers to switch to barley for their feed. Should that happen we'd most assuredly see a price hike.

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Good point...I didn't know farmers fed livestock barley...

Malting barley and feed barley are separate things. Barley destined for malting fetches a higher price and is probably too expensive to use for feed. It is grown specifically for that reason. Some of this barley does get rejected for poor quality for brewing and then is sold at a lower price for animal feed.

I'm a professional ag economist and think there have been some good thoughts in this thread.

The drought-induced corn price spikes will drag everything up a bit. Most (but not all) barley producers try to grow malting barley; whether barley qualifies to be "designated" as malting barley depends upon its performance in germination testing. So a lot of barley grown for the purposes of malting ends up as feed. Yes, there will be a greater demand for barley to feed given what is happening to corn. It wouldn't surprise me to see the price of malt increase. As someone else noted, if you use Yirrup Peon malt it might not matter as much. Either way, I can't see any price increase that occurs being significant enought to actually affect the quantity of beer we make. Because of supply-chain contracts we might not see a price increase until later in the winter anyway, but I can't say that for certain.