johnno
It's YUMMY
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From The Age.
Trust Australians to find a way of driving the beer-making dollar further.
Stock feed is being transformed into a top shelf beer ingredient in a project that could also boost Australia's $1 billion barley exports.
Researchers at the Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre in Adelaide have used DNA technology to turn hardy feed barley into premium malting plants that are good enough to use to make high quality beer.
"It's a noble goal," said research team leader Jason Eglinton, from the University of Adelaide.
"What started out as almost an academic, blue sky type project is actually giving us some very encouraging results and we could get a viable commercial product out of it."
It all comes down to understanding the genetic makeup of barley.
The properties of the grain that make it good for malting and brewing have their heritage in Europe, Japan and North America, but varieties from those areas do not cope well with Australia's hostile soils and climates.
Feed barley, on the other hand, has its origins in the Middle East and Africa and is much better suited to Australia's harsh conditions.
Previous research has focused on improving the difficult-to-grow malting varieties in Australia, but Dr Eglington's team took a different approach to take "a shot at the best of both worlds".
Researchers crossed the malting varieties with feed barley and used DNA technology to incorporate the malting quality genes in the plants.
But they also kept all the feed barley's best qualities like its disease resistance and strong yield, eventually coming up with varieties which could suit both farmers and export customers.
After four years of DNA analysis in laboratories, this year the team has new varieties in field trials in 14 sites across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
"We can really start to see the results of this in terms of the lines performing well in the field," Dr Eglinton said.
"Based on their DNA profiles we know that they carry the genes of interest so they will be good for malting and brewing quality.
"So we're starting to get towards the pointy end of the process."
And those plants are not just carrying any old genes. The scientists have taken the best varieties from Canada, Europe and Japan and combined them into the feed barley.
Molecular markers are used to identify whether the necessary genes are in the new plant, pointing to regions on the barley plant's chromosomes that tell whether it has the necessary malting abilities.
Around 100 potential commercial varieties are in the field now and close to 1,000 varieties are part of the next generation which will be culled down to the best performers.
Dr Eglinton said farmers' returns could be boosted by as much as 30 per cent by combining the higher yields of feed barley with malting varieties which attract higher prices.
There also strong opportunities to boost exports, with China's malting barley market booming as the country's east coast breweries struggle to meet rising consumption by newly-affluent workers.
Australia grows about seven million tonnes of barley a year on 3.5 million hectares, mainly in southern Australia. Barley exports earned $1.4 billion in 2004-05.
The research is being funded by barley marketer ABB Grain Ltd.
Trust Australians to find a way of driving the beer-making dollar further.
Stock feed is being transformed into a top shelf beer ingredient in a project that could also boost Australia's $1 billion barley exports.
Researchers at the Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre in Adelaide have used DNA technology to turn hardy feed barley into premium malting plants that are good enough to use to make high quality beer.
"It's a noble goal," said research team leader Jason Eglinton, from the University of Adelaide.
"What started out as almost an academic, blue sky type project is actually giving us some very encouraging results and we could get a viable commercial product out of it."
It all comes down to understanding the genetic makeup of barley.
The properties of the grain that make it good for malting and brewing have their heritage in Europe, Japan and North America, but varieties from those areas do not cope well with Australia's hostile soils and climates.
Feed barley, on the other hand, has its origins in the Middle East and Africa and is much better suited to Australia's harsh conditions.
Previous research has focused on improving the difficult-to-grow malting varieties in Australia, but Dr Eglington's team took a different approach to take "a shot at the best of both worlds".
Researchers crossed the malting varieties with feed barley and used DNA technology to incorporate the malting quality genes in the plants.
But they also kept all the feed barley's best qualities like its disease resistance and strong yield, eventually coming up with varieties which could suit both farmers and export customers.
After four years of DNA analysis in laboratories, this year the team has new varieties in field trials in 14 sites across Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and NSW.
"We can really start to see the results of this in terms of the lines performing well in the field," Dr Eglinton said.
"Based on their DNA profiles we know that they carry the genes of interest so they will be good for malting and brewing quality.
"So we're starting to get towards the pointy end of the process."
And those plants are not just carrying any old genes. The scientists have taken the best varieties from Canada, Europe and Japan and combined them into the feed barley.
Molecular markers are used to identify whether the necessary genes are in the new plant, pointing to regions on the barley plant's chromosomes that tell whether it has the necessary malting abilities.
Around 100 potential commercial varieties are in the field now and close to 1,000 varieties are part of the next generation which will be culled down to the best performers.
Dr Eglinton said farmers' returns could be boosted by as much as 30 per cent by combining the higher yields of feed barley with malting varieties which attract higher prices.
There also strong opportunities to boost exports, with China's malting barley market booming as the country's east coast breweries struggle to meet rising consumption by newly-affluent workers.
Australia grows about seven million tonnes of barley a year on 3.5 million hectares, mainly in southern Australia. Barley exports earned $1.4 billion in 2004-05.
The research is being funded by barley marketer ABB Grain Ltd.
h34r: ] and not to make beer barley out of stock feed.
