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Preserve Malting Barley Quality at Harvest
Barley producers need to take precautions at harvest time to preserve malting quality in their crop. Preventing or reducing skinned and broken kernels is the main concern during combining.
Skinned kernels are those with more than one-third of the protective husk removed from the kernel. Once skinned and broken kernels exceed 4 percent of the crop, barley quality and market prices are reduced.
Excessive combine cylinder speeds causes the most damage, Cylinder speeds used for threshing wheat are too fast for barley and should be reduced.
Check the operator's manual before making speed adjustments. Adjustments should be made in the field according to the harvest conditions.
If threshing problems develop at the slow cylinder speed, first reduce the cylinder to concave spacing. Increase cylinder speed only as a last resort and do it in small increments to avoid kernel damage.
Keep returns to the cylinder to a minimum. Returning grain to the cylinder for more threshing will cause more problems.
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