Water-use efficiency of barley in Tasmania

Barley is grown as a winter and spring sown-crop in Tasmania for malting or feed. Barley can provide growers with a flexible cereal in crop rotations comprised of a range of grain, vegetable, seed and extractive crops grown. Crop management, especially irrigation and N fertilisation is critical to meeting the quality requirements for malting of grain protein of between 9 to 11%. The aim of this factsheet is to provide information on typical WUE of barley grown in Tasmania, and to evaluate the impact of strategic irrigation and time of sowing on yield, WUE, grain quality and economic returns.