Chad Ferguson does not put thousands of acres into a new barley variety on a hunch. After several years of testing CDC Churchill on his nearly 5,000-acre farm near Naicam, Saskatchewan, he is growing 250 acres of it this year and says it has done well enough that he could take it to roughly 1,200 to 1,400 acres if he switched his malt-barley programme over completely. "We like to start making changes on a small scale and then act on them further if the changes work for us," he said during the Canadian Malt Barley Tour, the annual western Canadian tour run by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) that shows international and domestic buyers the coming crop.

Research plots on his farm were showcased on the tour as part of Rack's Ultimate Yield programme, which evaluates Churchill under different environments and management. Rack research scientist Aron Cory said the variety has been tested for five or six years, since it was still a numbered line, and has generally finished first or second for yield with good malting characteristics — ranking near the top across sites and years rather than shining once.

Yield alone does not win acres. "On our farm, we're going for profitability," Ferguson said; a lower-yielding crop can be the better choice if it fetches more, and with malt barley the price depends on quality and on whether maltsters will accept the variety. "When we put malt barley in the ground, our goal is to harvest malt-quality barley and not feed barley." A few years ago there were not enough buyers for Churchill; more maltsters now accept it, and Ferguson finds its malt quality as good as or better than other varieties, its yield potential higher than the AAC Synergy he has grown for years, its disease package stronger, and its height, maturity, standability and harvestability similar.

The market shows the same shift: Churchill accounted for 9.6% of the area seeded to malting barley in western Canada in 2025, up from 7.1% in 2024 and 3.1% in 2023, according to the Canadian Grain Commission. "Canadian barley and malt are regarded as a premium product by our international customers due to its cleanliness, high quality and excellent malting and brewing performance," said CMBTC managing director Peter Watts.

Rack's earlier work also concluded that barley was probably being over-fertilised, prompting more study of how nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur interact with newer varieties; Cory said newer genetics, Churchill among the strongest, show greater nutrient-use efficiency. Ferguson runs 16 other trials this year on varieties, seeding rates, row spacing, herbicides, fungicides, fertiliser and tillage — testing ideas with a scientific basis before adopting them farm-wide. The acres are not yet guaranteed: "You need to have a consistent market in order to sell it into," he said.

Source: Manitoba Co-operator