Can anyone help me with some barley growing?

[sugarworm]

I recently got the itch to grow some of my own barley after a decent hop crop last year, but I'm not too sure what varieties to get and need help to decide, so please save the talk about heirlooms for later :cross:. I've tried my hand with growing wheat before so I'm not too ignorant about the work it takes to harvest grain and quit (maybe I just needed beer to motivate me) The plan is to set aside about one acre to maybe one half acre, start with base malts and get fancy as I get along. I'd like to know if anyone knows anything about the yields I should expect to get with Northern Virginia temp (about zone 6b) and reasonably good soil. Also, is it alright if I plant the different breeds next to each other, barley's self- pollinating but I dunno how bad cross breeding could get...

 

[mbauer013]

If you irrigate and have good soil, you could get upwards of 60 bushels per acre according to Gene Logdon's Small Scale Grain Growing book. Barley weighs, on average 48 lbs per bushel so from one acre you could get 2880 lbs of barley in ideal conditions from a small scale operation. Professional operations have been getting nearly 90 bu/ac but that is most likely out of reach unless you have specialized equipment (grain drill, cultivators, high efficiency combine, etc.) That is a lot of grain. I'm a little fuzzy on the cross polination question, but I believe it won't matter for a single generation of grain, as the seed you plant is pure. If you are going to save some and replant, that is where the purity will be compromised due to cross polination.

 

[sugarworm]

Good lord, 2880 pounds? I don't think I'll work that hard on it so it'll probably be a bit less for me I'm planning on starting a seed crop so anyone have any info on how to stop crossbreeding and what breeds are most commonly used in brewing?

 

[smackett]

I was also thinking about doing this next year. I have about 1/4 acre to plant but i think the hard part will be malting it. I malted some corn and are about to brew with it. Good luck.

 

[MalFet]

Malting ain't so bad!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/happiness-home-malting-107409/

(Though 2880 lbs of it might require some creativity)

 

[Denny]

The only person I know who's tried to row malting barley harvested about 30% as much as he planted. Not that it's a given, but be aware. OTOH, you're in OR and barley is grown here commercially.

On malting...it's not too hard to make malt. It's very hard to make good malt. Good luck!

 

[mbauer013]

If you've done wheat before, barley shouldn't be too hard, the only easier grain to grow, IMO, is rye. I think it is going to be hard to find a pure cultivar in seed form most of the seed is sold in the US as stock feed or malting (malting being the 2-row variety) I was doind some more reading on cross-polination, and it seems as though corn is the only grain that you really have to worry about, and barley can be grown with small spacing (50-100 feet) from other varieties and still be fine. corn needs to be gorwn at least 400 feet from other varieties.