YELLOW JACKET — Local farmers will soon raise their beer mugs and declare a hearty “Cheers!” thanks to a proposal by Miller Coors to grow their malting barley here.
Test plots at the CSU Yellow Jacket Research Center look promising, and representatives from Miller Coors recently gave a tour and presentation for local growers about company specifics and standards for their key beer ingredient.
“I’m pleasantly surprised how well our barley grew here; it likes the early cool temperatures,” said Judy Jolly, an agronomist with Miller Coors. “We’re looking to expand our growing operations and this area is a good market for us and for you also.”
The company has been contracting with farmers in the Center and Monte Vista area to meet its growing demand for malting barley.
Nothing replaces local knowledge, and despite instructions to plant half an inch deep, Yellow Jacket researcher Abdel Berrada planted the seeds mostly 2-3 inches deep instead.
“As you can see, the deeper planted rows are doing much better than the more shallow planted crop,” Jolly said, “so thanks, Abdel.”
A group of 17 farmers and farm officials listened intently as Jolly and Bob Brunick, a barley breeder for Miller Coors, went over the nitty-gritty details of raising a crop for a large corporation.
A barley strain called Morovian is showing promise for the Dolores and Montezuma county soils. It is relatively drought tolerant and can be dryland farmed or irrigated, Brunick said.
“Moravian 69 is our main variety that has been in production the last 10 years,” he said. “A lot of it goes to our Golden, Colo., location. The malters really like it because it performs well in the malt house, germinates well and has good enzymes.”
A more specific strain targeting large-scale dryland farming is in the research and development stage, but has not been perfected yet.
“We have sunk a lot of dollars into coming up with the right dryland varietal strain,” Brunick said.
In the meantime, the Moravian strains are producing 30-50 bushels per acre on dryland farms, a good amount judging from the knowing nods and muted excitement of tour participants.
Researchers at Miller Coors are also focusing on developing a winter malting barley variety that survives the snow season like winter wheat.
“Right now the hard winters are hurting the malt quality of tested strains, but it will happen,” Brunick said, adding that the company has analyzed 22,000 strains, and only chose a handful of varieties for their products.
The tour moved on to the irrigated test plots. Irrigated yields are in the 150 bushels per acre range, Jolly said, and in experiments using less water, the barley reacted well, with no slip in quality.
Jolly said the malting barley crop is not susceptible to pests, and noted the area is blessed because there are not too many pest issues here.
Contracts for delivery could be signed in the next couple of months, Jolly said in response to a farmer’s query.
One challenge for this area is a lack of grain storage for barley and efficient transportation to faraway markets. For storage, modifications could be made to existing silo operations, or there could be a market for new grain storage facilities.
“In the San Luis Valley, [barley] is loaded onto rail cars, so we would have to strategize on how to deal with transportation challenges here,” Jolly said.
Buying and testing facilities also could be set up locally during harvest. Miller Coors has strict quality thresholds and acceptance rates for its barley on contaminates and levels of proteins and sugars in the grain, among other factors.
Young farmers Levi and Chelsea Garchar seemed interested in planting malting barley on their dryland farm operation between Dove Creek and Cahone.
“Might be worth it to try something new,” Levi Garchar said. “Depends on the contract specifics.”
Malting barley’s market price is around $6.75 per bushel, an increase of $1.40 since the end of 2012.
Free hats were handed out after the tour and sandwiches were served, but there were too many hoops to jump through to serve beer at a taxpayer-funded facility.
The Coors beer can has a depiction of Wilson Peak on the logo. And it might not be long before the famous American lager has a bit of Southwest Colorado inside the can as well.
“We’ve been looking for alternative crops and our testing shows malted barley is a good fit, so we are pretty optimistic,” Berrada said.
For more information call the CSU Ag Research Center in Yellow Jacket at (970) 562-4255.
jmimiaga@cortezjournal.com