Full brewing and malt distilling approval for LG Diablo

Spring barley LG Diablo has been given Full Approval for brewing use by the Malting Barley Committee (MBC). This follows on from its full approval last year for malt distilling.

LG Diablo is now the highest yielding spring barley variety with full approval for both brewing and malt distilling on the 2020/21 AHDB Recommended List, says Matt Shand, UK national sales manager for Limagrain UK.

“With this recent approval, LG Diablo now holds the title of being dual-use, demonstrating the robustness of its quality characteristics, as required by end users in both the brewing and malt distilling sectors,” he adds.

It’s not just its quality characteristics that are valuable, says Ron Granger, Limagrain’s arable technical manager. “LG Diablo sits amongst the very top yielders on the AHDB RL, yielding 105% of control. Significantly, its yields are highest in the key malting barley growing areas of the east (106%) and north (107%).

“LG Diablo’s untreated yields remain at the top of the yield table alongside Laureate at 97% of control, and 2% over that of RGT Planet. This shows just how robust the variety’s disease resistance ratings are.”

Mr Granger sees LG Diablo’s agronomic package as being particularly attractive to growers; LG Diablo has straw characteristics similar to RGT Planet; medium in height (73cm) with good lodging and brackling resistance.

LG Diablo has a very good specific weight, 67.1 kg/hl, which is important in the malting industry as malting is a volume-based process and low specific weights cause reduced throughput in the processing plants, points out Ron.

“Additionally growers with low specific weight parcels will incur penalties if specifications are not met, particularly in times of over-production.”

“Its hot water extract is a similar level to that of Concerto – a trait that helped Concerto to become a benchmark variety. A high hot water extract is heavily desired by the end user in order for them to achieve higher sugar extraction rates from the malt and the ability to create more alcohol – and LG Diablo offers this.”

“Now that the variety has been given the green light by the industry for both brewing and distilling we believe that LG Diablo’s future is very bright as it takes its place as a key variety in the sector- meeting the requirements of both growers and end users,” concludes Mr Shand.