1st German 2024 Malting-Quality Barley Harvest Report
1st tabular report of the 2024 German malting-quality barley harvest for download>>>>here
The German 2024 malting-quality barley harvest is now complete; and preliminary yield assessments are now underway, allowing the German Malting Barley Association to publish early estimates of the quality and quantity (below), as well as a tabular summary in the attachment to this mail, broken down by state and by key crop parameters. This is also the first report that distinguishes, in the attached table, between spring barley planted the conventional way in the spring and spring barley planted facultatively for brewing purposes in the fall. In official statistics, the latter crop is counted as winter barley, while the markets treat it as spring barley.
In spite of the sobering results of the overall 2024 German grain harvest, as published by the Deutsche Bauernverband (German Farmers Association), the harvested volume of malting-quality barley, although of very heterogeneous quality, was average. Unlike in the previous year, the crops could be harvested in dry and healthy condition under typical midsummer temperatures. Earlier in the season, however, the abundant rainfall and the large number of stalks with well-developed ears that modern barley varieties are capable of producing, severely diluted the available nitrogen, resulting in a rather low average protein value of only 9.9% for spring malting barley. The average protein value for winter malting barley, by comparison, was an optimal 10.8%. The plumpness values (kernels with diameters of ≥ 1.5 mm), on the other hand, were reversed, with spring barley at an above-average 91.7% and winter barley at a disappointing 88%. The total spring malting barley yield per hectare was a mere 5.1 MT; but for winter malting barley, it was a satisfactory 6 MT/ha.
The total 2024 harvest volume of malting-quality barley approached almost 1.3 million MT, which is a much better result than that of the previous year. The 2024 harvest also demonstrated the value of the strategic realignment at the farm level of planting “three pillars” of both winter and spring barley at their respective conventional timing, as well as facultative spring barley in the fall. This has allowed the industry to better balance fluctuations in both crop quantity and quality.
For the Braugersten-Gemeinschaft e.V.
Walter König