EVALUATION OF A MICRO-MALTING PROCEDURE USED TO AID A PLANT BREEDING PROGRAMME

Abstract

A micro-malting and a malt analysis procedure, using less than 40 g of seed, is described and critically appraised as a means of assessing the malting potential of samples generated in a barley breeding programme. Four barley varieties representing a range of malting abilities were used to evaluate the method. The magnitude of variances due to analyst, batch and cumulative experimental errors were compared to variation attributable to variety for 22 characters examined during seed preparation, malt production and malt analysis. For most characters almost all of the variance was due to variety; these included hot water extract, soluble nitrogen, cold water extract, grain nitrogen and thousand corn weight, which are the characters principally used for assessing malting ability. The results show that the procedure is suitable for determining the grain characters and malting potential of the large numbers of samples submitted from breeding trials and also draw attention to those requiring particular care in defining analytical techniques and requiring consistency in application.