2023 Barley, CWRS, Durum, Soft Wheat & Triticale

Our 2023 grain demo plots were grown on irrigation and seeded late April. We had demonstration lines from the Olds College Field Crop Development Centre in the plots as well, but we removed them from the charts for clarity since they are not for commercial release yet. 

We used a Plant Growth Regulator (PGR) later than recommended in the plots and that caused stunting and late tillers. The plots were shorter than normal because of the late PGR impacting yields and causing late tillering. So yield numbers here are harder to compare this season as each variety may respond to stress differently.

A fungicide was used at head timing, prior crop was flax, and we used 280 lbs of 46-0-0 spread on and worked in, plus 90 lbs of 11-52 with the seed. It was seeded on 7.5" spacing with a double disk drill into worked soil and irrigated about a week after seeding.

Link to all of the charts for the grain yield demo & trials results: Trials

My summary:
Although the stunting will make this data less reliable I will need to pull in more large field comparisons to help make decisions and form our opinions. Pricing will come out very late October but you can get on the list for us to get back to you on something: 
Blair  at 403-634-4349 (call or text) or [email protected]

Barley
The 6 row varieties always seed to handle stress well as long as you have moisture to fill the heads later season as shown here with AB Tofield. The rest of the varieties may be showing stunting effects as they are all pretty similar and that is not what we expected. Generally if you have moisture Sirish has been great, and Esma has been a top variety for medium to high moisture zones. AB Hague seems to fare well on dryland and can be good on irrigation as well.

Best for standing: Sirish & Esma (close second with Bill Coors 100 and CDC Churchill)
Best for forage: CDC Renegade (2 row smooth awn) & AB Tofield (6 row smooth awn) and Esma and Sirish for top end forage yields.
Most finicky: Sirish - needs good environment with moisture and a fungicide pass
Best in drought: AB Hague
Best net returns - Bill Coors 100 has yielded & priced well for our customers with contracts with Canada Malt - (Darren Marsen (403) 809-8670 ) or Molson Coors south of Highway 1 on irrigation with Cody Shick (406) 697-3838 

CWRS
SY Manness won our CWRS trial and did very well in the seed production field, it may be more suited for those doing a fungicide and it does seem to have some taller plants in it as part of the variety, but it looks very good. (so be warned you may have a taller plant in your 124 bu avg yield SY Manness crop!! as the seed production field averaged that!) AAC Hockley & AAC Hodge VB did win for some customers, AAC Wheatland VB is still a reliable variety for us.

Durum
AAC Schrader is the new top FHB resistant variety with an I rating. It is taller so it's great for dryland or needs a PGR or 2 on irrigation. Stronghold did well again and CDC Vantta was in the pack.
Dryland we recommend: Schrader (its a hollow stem fyi) or Grainland or CDC Vantta (hollow stem but showing good sawfly resistance)
Irrigation: Schrader (it's tall though), Succeed VB, Stronghold, CDC Vantta (it's short stature)

Soft wheat
We seem to be seeing top yields from AC Sadash VB still as we have come back to it as a variety in our lineup. Its weakness is FHB ratings but it can yield!

Triticale
We did not get the new TriCal Surge into these plots this spring but for grain we have a small amount of Sunray on hand yet and for forage we recommend the Surge.

​Below we have each crop type in its own chart with a total plot chart at the end of the slide show below:

More yield demo & trials results here: Trials

---