Barley Bin Special Series: A look back at 50 years of barley breeding in Western Canada
Welcome to a special edition of the Barley Bin podcast!
On July 11th, 2024, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Brandon Research and Development Centre celebrated 100 years of advancing barley research. In honour of this valuable breeding program, which has produced 40 of Canada’s top barley varieties in the past century, explore our 3 part podcast series on the last 50 years of barley research in Western Canada.
Usually, our goal with this podcast is to bring you right inside the barley bin with key agronomic updates and production strategies. But this episode is a little different – we’re taking you on a trip back through time, deep into Canadian barley history.
Today, Canada is a top producer and supplier of barley and malt to the global malting and brewing industry. But that hasn’t always been the case.
In the early 1970s, the Canadian malting barley industry was tiny compared to its size today, and there are several reasons for this increase.
One of them is that, in the last 50 years, Canadian barley breeders have worked diligently to develop new malting barley varieties to meet the agronomic needs of Canadian farmers and the technical requirements of the malting and brewing industry.
This hasn’t always been an easy or clear-cut task. But it does make for an interesting history lesson!
Join us as we dive in and get itchy, looking back at the development of some of Canada’s most well-known malting barley varieties and their origin stories.
