Cocktail

Very high yielding spring malting barley

Parentage: Sebastian x Drum

Status: HGCA Recommended List 2007 and SAC Recommended List 2007

Yield Potential

Cocktail is the highest yielding variety with full IBD approval for brewing coupling with excellent brackling and lodging resistense.

Yield table

Cocktail has produced excellent yields consistently across all regions of the UK , ensuring its status as a reliable variety to grow.

Yield table

Disease Resistance

Cocktail has good all round disease resistance to mildew and brown rust, with an improved
resistance to Rhynchosporium compared with Optic. However a managed fungicide programme
is recommended.

Disease resistance

Fungicide Use

Getting early to mid season agronomy right is crucial to establishing a healthy crop.

T0 -

The T0 spray prevents diseases gaining a foothold in long growing seasons or where disease
pressure is high. The use of Unix helps keep Rhynchosporium at bay.

T1-

Timing is key for protecting the canopy during the plants' main burst of growth.
Kayak + Triazole provides broad spectrum disease control.

T2-

Managing late season plant health is also vitally important to ensure a healthy harvest.
This is the key time to protect grain fill with awns and green leaf areas being the key targets.
Strobilurins protect against foliar diseases and Chlorothalonil has demonstrated control of biotic
and abiotic spotting.

CORE PROGRAMME

T0 -	Unix and Tern (should be used where disease pressure is high)
T1-	Kayak + Triazole
T2-	Amistar Opti + Triazole

Agronomic Information

Cocktail is a relatively short and very stiff variety with excellent resistance to brackling. Cocktail is also earlier maturing than Optic – 1 day earlier in England and up to 3 days in Scotland , therefore harvest management needs to take account of this.

Agronomic information

Growth Habit

Early Spring - Semi prostrate

Tillering ability - High

Maturity - Medium - Late (1 day earlier than Optic in England and 3 days earlier in Scotland )

Drilling Dates

Suitability for early drilling - December onwards

Suitability for late drilling (April) - Acceptable

Optimum drilling date - February – March ( Scotland ) January – February ( England )

Recommended Sowing Rates

Seed rates are dependent on soil conditions at the time of drilling, the more difficult the environment, the higher the seed rate must be to compensate for potential plant loss. The table below shows the suggested number of seeds per square metre that should be planted under good conditions.

Sowing rates

The chart above should always be used in conjunction with the thousand-grain weight of the seed to
calculate the sowing rate.

Nitrogen Application

Higher nitrogen inputs increase yields and recent advice has been to lift rates for producing higher grain
nitrogen lager malt. However, end user requirements generally are shifting back towards <1.75N. Applying too much nitrogen pushes screenings and grain nitrogen too high – especially in seasons like 2002 and 2003 when weather conditions did not allow plants to fully utilise available nitr ogen. Varieties have different optimum nitrogen rates, therefore balancing N inputs to end market, variety and season is key. While difficult to advise on exact nitrogen rates, many growers know how much to apply to Optic for a 1.65% grain nitrogen.

For Cocktail, the following is a rule of thumb.

Cocktail: 120 – 135 kg/ha N (in most situations)
Optic: 125 – 150 kg/ha N (in most situations)

Influence of nitrogen input on grain size and grain N levels

Nitrogen application

PGR's

Normally not required, however NFC advises their use on lush crops or very fertile sites. In these cases use low rate Moddus (0.1 – 0.2 l/ha) at GS 29-30 to stabilise tillers and promote root development.

Quality

Publican is under IBD commercial evaluation for brewing and distilling during harvest 2007. Publican is also currently being tested and evaluated across Europe (including France , Germany , Denmark , Sweden and Holland ) which may offer potential export opportunities.

Publican appears to possess a very ‘balanced profile' in quality attributes required by European customers, including good Hot Water Extract (HWE), good levels of DP and low beta glucan.

Grain Quality

Specific Wt - 70.2 kg/hl
Sieving % through - 2.25mm - 3.4%
Sieving % through - 2.5mm - 11.3%
Nitrogen Content - 1.49N

Harvesting

As Cocktail is an early maturing variety it is always advisable to harvest the crop in the best condition, as soon as moisture is correct. As with all malting barleys, the variety should be kept separate to prevent contamination and to obtain the maximum premium from the end product.

Storage Management

Storage of malting barley is a must priority to ensure harvest quality remains. Malting barley in storage should be regularly checked, with grain temperatures and moistures being monitored to ensure germination levels are maintained at 98% minimum.

The table below shows the importance of low moisture content and grain temperature for storing malting
barley, it also shows the approximate safe storage time in days.

Agronomic information

All information is a partial extraction from the New farm crops website and also the HGCA Recommended List 2007/8. See http://www.newfarmcrops.co.uk/ and also www.hgca.com for the full dataset