Pushing Barley to the Limit

The Maximizing Barley Yield While Minimizing Lodging (MBYWML) project aims to develop a treatment plan that would increase yields while reducing the possibility of lodging. By limiting the height of the crop, you'll see sturdier stems and increased protein ≥ which increases yields and decreases risk of crop loss.

Our first year is out of the ground and we're getting it into the books! There's still data to comb through, but you can expect to see the Year 1 data in early 2023.

With a new plant growth regulator (PGR) on the market, we wanted to use this opportunity to explore more than just which product works best. We used this project to investigate the possibility of stacked treatment plans, as well as develop regional data for Syngenta's Moddus.

"We're looking at the label approved rates and timings, and we've added in some other rates and application timings. That's where farmer's interest lies," says Farming Smarter's Research Coordinator, Mike Gretzinger.

A big problem barley growers face is the multiple passes of herbicide, PGR, and fungicide.

Previous research into the effectiveness of Moddus showed it was not consistent in eliminating lodging. Additionally, it found that in western Canada, the product's performance was inconsistent with barley. However, related barley research from South Africa found that later applications of Moddus (at growth stage 37 ≥ flag leaf rolled) and split applications resulted in more consistent reductions of lodging across cultivars and environments.

This has not yet been tested in Alberta, so we want to provide this regional data as part of our study.

For this project, we used three varieties of barley ≥ the common feed barley, AAC Austenson, and two others ≥ Esma and Hague ≥ in each of our treatments.

Splitting the workload

Currently, cereal growers who use PGRs apply herbicide, fungicide, and the PGR in individual passes. Usually, the herbicide will be applied early, around growth stage 20, the PGR will be applied between growth stage 30-31, and the fungicide will be applied around growth stage 37.

We hope to potentially reduce the number of passes required for effective application, splitting the PGR application between the herbicide and fungicide applications.

Additionally, a struggle barley growers face is watching their crop grow too tall for its own good. When the grain head becomes too heavy for the stem to hold it, the crop collapses ≥ this process is known as lodging and contributes to yield loss.

With this product, we hope to see an improvement in lodging resistance and stem strength throughout the growing season. Along with sweltering temperatures, the weather was uncooperative as we never experienced the usual late-August/early-September storms that commonly knock our cereal crops over.

Usually, a lack of lodged crops would be a good thing, it unfortunately left our checks standing taller than anticipated.

While we work hard to bring you the results from our first year of this trial, you can learn more about this project with these great videos: