PREDICTION OF SAFE STORAGE LIFE FOR SOUND AND WEATHER-DAMAGED MALTINGBARLEY

Various factors, particularly exposure to rain at harvest, can reduce the storage life of barley for malting. Recent experience in Australia has shown that slightly weather-damaged grain, and/or grain stored at too high a temperature, can exhibit an unacceptable loss in germinati ve capacity (to under 95%) in less than six months. We have previously developed a model to describe this loss as a function of storage cond itions and initial grain soundness, or damage index (DI). Measures of DI employed in this study included falling number, stirring number, Ce ralpha alpha-amylase, and a newly derived hot-water immersion test. Al l of these were well correlated with grain storage life for seven cult ivars of malting barley stored at three different temperatures. Conseq uently, they have been fitted to the storage life model previously der ived. The model is available as a software package (SAFESTOR) for use by the industry. It permits prediction of acceptable storage life, and thus provides a tool for the better management of barley storages.