FARMINGTON SPRING BARLEY – 2005 WSU VARIETY TESTING DATA
1. 2005 Spring Barley data from the WSU Variety Testing nursery at the Farmington location averaged 3961 lbs/ac and was 21.1% less than the previous 3-year historical average of 5413 lbs/ac. This nursery was re-cropped following a 2004 winter wheat crop
2. The uniqueness 2005 GROWING SEASON (dry/cold spring, wet May 2005, hot/dry weather at the end of June 2005) appeared to influence yields and quality. Average PLANT HEIGHT in the 2005 spring barley nursery was only 26.0 inches compared to 33.8 inches in the previous year (2004). This 23% reduction in plant height appears to have an association with reduced yields, just in terms of plant growth and development.
3. TEST WEIGHT values were somewhat low for the majority of varieties in this nursery with only 25% of the varieties averaging over 48.0 lbs/bu. As experienced in other many of the other 2005 spring barley nurseries, on average, 6-row varieties had lower test weight values (45.7 lbs/bu) than 2-row varieties (47.4 lbs/bu) which are fairly typical.
4. Variety YIELD RANKINGS seemed to bounce around compared to historical yield rankings. Even Baronesse that has historically placed 8th and 4th on the 3-year and 5-year averages, respectively, slipped to 30th ranking out of the 40 entries in the 2005 nursery. There was a fairly high level of plot variation (CV = 21.1%) in this nursery caused by some unevenness in stand establishment and plant development compounded by the growing season conditions. This contributed to some of the ‘bouncing’ around. Historical (2, 3 and 5-year) averages are the best data sets to use in making varietal choices for this nursery.
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