07/12/06 Determing best barleys for biorefnery

Farm and Ranch July 12, 2006 Researchers at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center near Pendleton are looking at which barely varieties would be the best to grow in northeast Oregon for the planned Treasure Valley Renewable Resources cereal grain biorefinery near Ontario, Oregon. That facility will separate wheat and barley into their functional components for use in food trade and other industries. Steve Petrie, Superintendent of the Research Center, says the dryland production area of northeast Oregon has some advantages like an earlier harvest compared to the Treasure Valley and abundant on-farm storage. Petrie's research is focusing on spring barley varieties. Petrie: "My first goal is to identify adapted lines that growers could begin seeding within a year or two. Pat Hayes, the OSU barley breeder, is working to convert those, or to transfer the desirable characteristics from those spring types into winter lines because we know that the winter lines have a much higher yield potential than spring types." Petri says by the end of this harvest and by next year, they will have a very good idea of what spring varieties growers should consider growing. Development of the winter varieties will of course take longer. Petrie: "But with the use of some high technology marker assisted selection we should be able to have lines tested in the field within three years." The preferred barleys for food-grade uses are waxy hull-less types but Petrie says the biorefinery will be able to utilize hulled types by using the hulls in ethanol production. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.