The 8th Canadian Barley Symposium is underway this week in Winnipeg.

Its being held in conjunction with the 22nd North American Barley Researchers Workshop.

John O'Donovan of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Lacombe, AB) kicked off the presentations Monday morning, discussing optimizing agronomic practices to improve yield and quality of malting barley.

One of the topics he touched on was seeding timing.

"For most regions we found that the earlier the farmer went in and and seeded barley, the more likely that he got a good yield and the most likely that he got good quality barley that would be acceptable for malting purposes."

O'Donovan added they also found that there are lots of advantages to having a higher plant density.

The event wraps up on Wednesday.