Studies On The Key Cultivation Factors Affecting Yield And Grain Quality Of Malting Barley

With the rapid development of beer industry in china, malting barley, as the raw material of beer production, is becoming increasingly important and has changed from a minor grain crop into an importantly economic one. However, due to the problems existed in the traditional planting pattern, malting barley in China now mainly depends on import, which becomes a limiting factor for sustainable development of malting barley industry. This paper consisted of two parts. In the first part, situation, problems and possible strategies of malt barley production were reviewed. Malting barley is now characterized by special requirements of grain quality. Relatively lower quality of nationally-produced malt barley has constricted both barley production and development of beer industry in China. While developing the malt barley cultivars with improved malt quality, it is quite important to adapt suitable planting environments and reasonable agronomic practices for increasing grain yield and improving malt quality. In the second part, the results were reported on the influence of different cultivars, nitrogen application rates and seeding rates on some agronomic characters and kernel quality traits of malting barley, using an experiment with aiming at providing a good cultivation management for a newly-released malt barley cultivar Zheda9. The main results are as follows:1. Higher nitrogen application rate increased grain yield, but reduced grain quality on the whole. Therefore, a moderate reduction of nitrogen application should be addressed in malt barley production under high soil fertility if grain yield not much affected.2. Two new malting barley cultivars used in this experiment differed obviously in agronomic and grain quality traits. On the whole, Zheda9had higher grain yield and P-amylase activity, lower β-glucan content and less variation in these quality parameters over the environments, in comparison with Zhepi33.3. Higher seeding rate, while resulting in the reduction of kernel plumpness, had a positive impact on grain yield without negative effect on malt quality traits. In addition, the relationship between seeding rate and kernel plumpness depends on cultivars, with Zheda9had less reduction with increased seeding rate.4. Correlation analysis showed that there are significantly negative correlations between1000-grain weight and protein content, β-amylase activity, and a positive correlation between1000-grain weight and grain β-glucan content. Moreover, there is a significantly positive correlation between protein content and β-amylase activity, a negative correction between protein content, β-amylase activity and β-glucan content, Thus it may be concluded that suggested that N level is a key factor affecting malt barley quality and significance of reasonable N fertilizer application in malt barley production.