United Kingdom
January 29, 2025
At Syngenta we are very proud of our long heritage in malting barley. Under the New Farm Crops banner, we began our breeding activities back in 1979, and since then we have gone from strength to strength developing many successful spring barley varieties including OPTIC, NFC TIPPLE, QUENCH and more recently, the well-known variety LAUREATE.
SY ARROW is the latest spring malting barley to come from this Syngenta programme, offering fantastic yields and agronomics alongside outstanding malting quality characteristics.
The importance of dual-purpose varieties
The spring malting barley market has two major markets making up over 80% of the purchases by UK maltsters: brewing and malt distilling. Varieties with MBC approval for both these markets, or dual-purpose varieties, are popular as they bring flexibility to the maltster and increased market security to the grower.
LAUREATE continues to be the most widely grown dual-purpose variety across the UK, renowned for its consistency of performance both on-farm and in the maltings.
SY TENNYSON, also from Syngenta, became only the third variety with Full MBC Approval for both markets in 2024 and now sets the bar for malting quality in this key variety sector.
SY ARROW enters the final stages of MBC testing
SY ARROW was newly added to the 2025 AHDB Recommended List in December and has the potential quality that fits both of these key markets. Initial MBC testing has been extremely positive, with SY ARROW now starting the final pilot testing stage of the MBC process, targeting Full MBC Approval for both markets by June 2026.
Here are a few highlights of the exciting new variety, SY ARROW:
- SY ARROW is the highest yielding variety with potential for brewing and malt distilling on the 2025 AHDB Recommended List (UK 103.9% treated controls)
- Very strong and consistent yield performance across all seasons and regions (East 104%, West [105%], North 103% treated controls)
- Earlier maturity than LAUREATE
- Excellent agronomic and disease package, including ratings of 8 for Mildew, 5 for Brown Rust, 7 for Rhynchosporium and [8] for Net Blotch
- SY ARROW has an outstanding combination of high Hot Water Extract (315.8 l deg/kg) and Predicted Spirit Yield (437.8 laa/t), indicating very high alcohol yields for both end markets
SY ARROW is already demonstrating many of the same consistency benefits that made LAUREATE the No.1 choice for growers across the UK.
The excellent disease profile that has always underpinned LAUREATE can also be seen replicated in SY ARROW. What really sets SY ARROW apart though, is its combination of all the key features that stack up to a great all-round variety.
Offering very high yields, outstanding malting quality, excellent disease profile and earlier maturity desired by many growers, it’s easy to see why SY ARROW is the variety to watch for the future.
For more information on SY ARROW, click here.
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