World Grain - April 2009 - 40

FEATURE: U.K. MILLING SECTOR CONSIDERS QUALITY WOES

to deal with the low protein issue."
Shaun Taylor, technical controller at
Rank Hovis, said steps are being taken
to do everything possible to utilize the
wheat grown in the U.K.

average to meet the 13% protein specification. It failed to meet the 250-Hagberg
specification in two of those 23 years and
failed to meet the specific weight specification of 76 kilograms per hectoliter

"We have a huge variability in quality this year. Just 6 percent of
NABIM Group 1 wheat has met NABIM bread-making spec."
- Heike Hintze-Gharres, HGCA

"There are limits to what we can do
with things like wheat gluten, but believe me we are doing them," he said.
"We are using the wheat we have. We
are using it to the best effect."
Roger Sylvester Bradley, principal research scientist at ADAS, wanted to see
more done to make the best use of resources in producing milling wheat. "It
seems to me there is an enormous inefficiency in the way we are using nitrogen
for wheat for bread making," he said.
He called growing wheat for the
high-quality specification "the milling
gamble."
"The protein has been the main problem," Bradley said.
In nine of the 23 years up to 2008, U.K.
milling wheat in Group 1 had failed on

in one of those years. On average, from
2000 to 2008 just 27% of U.K. wheat
had matched the millers' specification
for Group 1 wheat.
A new version of the U.K.'s fertilizer
use manual for farmers, RB 209, is due
out this summer, but the limits it lays
down are not likely to create problems
for milling wheat producers.
"The quantities are fairly large, and
we don't believe they should constrain
your ability to grow a good bread-making sample," Bradley said.
One big change in the new manual
is that it allows for changes in nitrogen
usage to take into account changes in
price, a move which was triggered by
the sharply increased volatility of nitrogen prices. In the previous version,

it was assumed that nitrogen was three
times the price of wheat by weight,
a price relationship which had been
steady until then.
The new manual takes into account
the volatility of nitrogen prices, whereas
the old version, published in 2000, was
based on the fact that a kilogram of nitrogen costs three times as much as a kilogram of wheat, a level which had been
fairly steady until then. The new manual
bases its recommendations on a price ratio of five to one, although nitrogen prices have risen to as high as nine times the
level of wheat. To cope with such sharp
variations, the manual will include a
table that adjusts the recommendations
for different nitrogen prices.
Bradley looked at trials of 39 feed
and milling wheats, which showed how
nitrogen response had been improved.
The new varieties produced on average
an extra 0.51 tonnes a hectare without
nitrogen, but with the optimum nitrogen
application that extra yield increased to
1.19 tonnes. "The breeders have been
successful at improving the capture of
nitrogen," he said.
IS IT WORTH THE RISK?
Graham Redman, economist at the
Andersons Centre, compared returns

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World Grain - April 2009

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