2025 Barley Grain Demo Plot Results

We carry a wide range of barley varieties because they are so unique!

In these plots the yield is not as important as the relative yield to another variety, under the same management.
These are not scientific or replicated, but we do have bookmark varieties on each end of the plots to make sure the plot is somewhat even. It is on irrigation and managed to the triticale field around the plots

This demo was seeded April 28th and harvested Sept 8th. Plant stand targets were 25 plants on the barley with 10% mortality built in.

40 lbs of 11-52 was placed in seed row & 175 lbs of 46-0-0 was banded before seeding. Crop rotation was potatoes last year. A PGR (Moddus) was used on half the plot to try and showcase lodging and a fungicide was applied at the start of flowering on the whole plot. We did see lodging differences where there was a PGR applied.

Medium to Good Moisture Situations
The top 2 were Esma and SY Stanza - 2 European bred varieties that do well under medium to good moisture and stand well. They do risk lower bu weights if it does get dry late season. 
Esma - VUA on farm save seed
SY Stanza - Can farm save one year off Cert on the same amount of acres. SY stanza won last years demo, it's registered as a malt but most using for a feed (If you liked Sirish this is its replacement in our lineup)

Dryland:
The top dryland variety where you are in the mid to low moisture situations:
CDC Durango - many customers saying it beat their Austenson and other 2 row feed varieties
AAC Synergy malt barley is often grown on dryland to have malt insurance coverage (in AB if you sign a malt contract) but is often used for feed due to bu weight. 

Malt:
One variety we missed in our demo plots was AAC Synergy malt barley, some grow for malt but many grow for feed under dry conditions since it seems to do well and maintain bu weight.
Bill Coors 100 was also good, (some customers had similar yields to their Esma)
SY Stanza is registered as a malt (also a non GN) but most of our customer will use it as a feed or forage.

2 Row Grain or Forage Flex 
CDC Renegade is our 2 row smooth awn forage or grain flex variety. It's taller and can lay down more vs. our other varieties, but is a better choice vs. CDC Cowboy and CDC Maverick

6 Row Grain or Forage Flex 
New this season is AB Fortify to replace AB Tofield. AB Fortify is a super smooth awn with improved yields and our 6 row choice for 2026. We did have some lodging in our demo plots that impacted the grain yield. 
We do expect to sell out of this and if needed fall back on AB Tofield.

We also had an experimental on each end of the plot that did very well, more to come on that over the next few seasons! The 3 crop pictures below are left to right in the plots to match the chart below.