AGRICULTURE NEWS - Extremely dry weather conditions across South Africa’s barley production regions this season have resulted in plantings being delayed, according to Grain SA economist, Ikageng Maluleke.

She said the planting season had just started, and a major challenge for barley producers, who were mostly based in the Western Cape, was the drought conditions they had experienced in recent years.

“This creates serious problems with germination and can lead to poor quality when harvesting the barley. Weather is always a large risk [when trying] to reach malting quality standards,’’ Maluleke said.

“The current intentions to plant that was released by the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) show that the planned hectares are in line with previous years, [with] a small increase of roughly 10% to 23 500ha. But it is very early in the season to [speculate about the] volumes and quality that can be expected,” she said.

The ban on the sale of liquor, including beer, due to the lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, also posed a risk for the industry.

Read the full article here on the Caxton publication, Farmer's Weekly