When the sum of the grain parts is greater than the whole, it's in the interest of Idaho agriculture to find-or develop-grains with the most valuable parts.
 

At the University of Idaho's Southwest Idaho Research and Extension Center at Parma, crop management specialist Brad Brown is evaluating winter and spring barleys that Idaho growers may be selling in 2006 to a new "fractionation" plant in Ontario, Ore. 
 

Fractionation plants separate fiber, starch and protein from grain kernels and market these components. Expected to be under construction by mid-summer, Treasure Valley Renewable Resources, LLC, plans to buy promising crop varieties from growers as early as next spring, according to manager John Hamilton.
 

Brown's studies, under way since 2003, predate the Ontario plant's construction because "we don't want to wait-and they don't want to wait-until they have a facility built before they know what varieties they are going to contract for or how much to pay for them," Brown says. In a field at Parma, he is growing:

• waxy barleys that produce a starch that food manufacturers prefer because it binds better with water and forms more stable gels at lower temperatures than other starches-an advantage in some frozen dough products as well as some extruded or puffed products,
• human-grade food barleys that are high in such potentially heart-healthy "nutraceuticals" as beta-glucan soluble fiber, and
• feed barleys that are low in phytate phosphorus and have the potential to reduce water pollution from such nonruminant livestock operations as fish, poultry and swine.

The varieties were developed by public and private crop breeders, including the USDA Agricultural Research Service's barley breeding program at Aberdeen. Barleys with the same qualities that Brown is evaluating at Parma will also be tested in northern Idaho trials by his colleague Stephen Guy. Some hulless waxy barleys have already been validated for their usefulness in fish feeds at the UI's Hagerman Fish Culture Experiment Station

"If we can get a high waxy and a high beta-glucan barley type, that would be a good variety for Treasure Valley Renewable Resources to use," says Brown. "The question is which type is most productive-and that's what we're in the course of trying to find out."
 

Not only is Brown planting winter barleys in fall and spring barleys in spring, he is also planting spring barleys in winter. With more time to grow, fall-planted spring barleys produce higher yields than spring-planted barleys if winter temperatures remain relatively warm. Greater productivity is especially important for some of the new varieties Brown is testing because the qualities they offer can come at the price of lower yields. For example, hulless varieties, which represent a sizable share of the grains in his test plots, typically yield 10 to 20 percent less than hulled varieties.
 

In addition to yields, Brown is evaluating the varieties' cold-tolerance and resistance to lodging.
 

At Weiser, Hamilton is also examining two soft white waxy spring wheats developed by UI wheat breeder Ed Souza at Aberdeen. According to Souza, these wheats offer yield potentials "similar to our better soft white spring wheats" as well as disease resistance and adaptability to irrigated production.
 

"We're trying to identify the grains that will give us what we want yet will produce as well or better than what the grower has now," Hamilton says. Without the assistance of the UI scientists, he doubts "we'd be anywhere near having an idea of what varieties we want."
 

The plant's capacity should allow purchase, interchangeably, of 8 million bushels of barley, 3 1/2 million bushels of wheat and 3 million bushels of corn, Hamilton says.

"Right now, we don't grow enough barley in the Treasure Valley to meet the needs of that plant," Brown says. "But if the prices are strong enough, there would be a lot of people who have historically raised spring wheat who would probably switch to spring barley-and some of them might plant it in late fall."

Hamilton says if demand is high for the fractionated products, the plant may be able to buy grains from farms located in concentric rings beyond the Treasure Valley-to Mountain Home and even to Burley.