Andy Barr farms 700ha in a family partnership in Kent. Combinable crops of about 400ha and include milling wheat and malting barley in an increasingly varied rotation. He also grazes 800 Romney ewes and 40 Sussex cattle and the farm uses conservation agriculture methods
⁕ “With regret… you’re sprayed” were my recent Lord Sugar-esque words to the weevils on my peas. It certainly was with regret, as I try my utmost not to spray any foliar insecticide.
I seem to have got away with it on cereals and oilseed rape, but legumes are another matter.
Despite being notched, the beans grew away quickly, but the peas were being eaten back to the leaf ribs in patches and fire brigade action was required.
No doubt the bruchid beetle will also need attention, but with a recent farmer meeting discussion revealing no difference in bean damage from a wide variety of spray applications, we really need an integrated solution fast. I often learn most from these farmer discussions and field visits.
As part of Biodiversity Agriculture, Soil and Environment UK I have a small conservation agriculture trial where I am ploughing next to direct drilling to see how it compares.
This year I also have tine and disc direct drilling next to these trial sites and members are welcome to have a look at any time.
I am on the steering committee for the new AHDB arable monitor farm in Kent. It is a beautiful mixed farm and topics for discussion and demonstration through the year include strip and no-till, fixed costs, cover crops and soil health. You can also suggest further topics to be discussed at the introduction meeting on 23 June. That day will also spark talk about another, rather larger, collaboration – the EU.
I am a fan of farmer co-operatives and believe we can be much better off working together.
However, I do want to maintain my own business. It would be mad not to have easy trading agreements with our European neighbours, but even most “In” voters still feel they do not want to be part of a large super-state.
Will the fact we are voting be enough to jolt the euro-politicians into realising we do not want a United States of Europe? Or will an “In” vote need to be extremely close in order to do the trick?
Matt Redman operates a farming and agricultural contracting business specialising in crop spraying, Avadex application and direct drilling in Bedfordshire. He also grows cereals on a small area of tenancy land and was Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year in 2014
⁕ T2 fungicides have all been applied pretty much bang on time, which was a relief after the struggle with the T1s.
Overall, wheats are looking well, although blackgrass has continued to germinate all year and is now starting to poke through in areas that were considered pretty clean.
Further monitoring over the next couple of weeks will allow a decision on whether areas need glyphosating before the Cereals event.
Drilling finally finished in May after a very difficult spring. Slugs have been a big issue this year, regardless of establishment method – the mild winter was no doubt a factor.
Even in winter cereals it is possible to find loads of them, so caution and careful product choice will be needed going into the autumnespecially when using metaldehyde.
The Basic Payment Scheme 2015 application process was an absolute shambles and 2016 wasn’t much better. Thankfully, the deadline wasn’t extended or there would only have been increased confusion and the whole process would have been behind before it started.
It’s one of those few moments where I’m glad I only have a small area of ground at the moment. At least it is easy to fill in the forms and there’s less chance of the Rural Payments Agency messing it up (although they lost the whole thing for a few weeks last year).
Cereals is just around the corner and it looks as if it is going to be a busy show for me this year – although there isn’t anything I’m dying to see.
On the first day I have the presentation of the Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year award – I was part of the judging team this year.
We had a brilliant couple of days visiting finalists and took away many great ideas, hints and tips from each of them. I would strongly encourage anyone thinking about it to enter and have a go next year.
Also on the first day of the event is the launch of the next Cereals Development Programme by the NFU and Openfield – a great little training scheme that I was lucky to be part of the last time it was run.
Pop along to the NFU stand at 4.15pm to see what it’s all about and have a chat to some previous participants.
David Clark runs a 463ha mixed farm with his wife Jayne at Valetta, on the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand’s south island. He grows 400ha of cereals, pulses, forage and vegetable seed crops, runs 1,000 Romney breeding ewes and finishes 8,000 lambs annually
The harvest here at Valetta has drawn to a close. Cereals are now in the silo without any need for drying and the grass and clover crops are away being dressed.
A few days of warm north-west winds at the end of April saw the hybrid carrots, radish and red beet crops combined and the 2016 harvest done and dusted.
It has been a mixed bag of results, but overall we had a good average harvest. We were desperately dry through the spring, with only 18mm of rain in October and 13mm in November. Our irrigation struggled with wells at all-time low levels due to little winter rainfall and minimal recharge.
We got a handy break with 100mm in January that finished cereals and the late grasses, but badly affected the flowering of white clover, pea crops and early grasses that lay in the windrow for three weeks.
February dawned with a run of hot weather and virtually no rainfall, giving us the best harvest conditions for several years. We achieved exceptional autumn-sown cereal yields, with some fields averaging 14t/ha. This was balanced by very disappointing weights of about 8.5t/ha out of the spring cereal crops.
With the autumn cultivations all finished and the kit cleaned and away in the shed for a few months, we will certainly be looking for a wet winter to recharge our underground aquifers ahead of next spring.
We have had an unseasonably mild May, which would normally suggest we are heading for snow at some point during winter. The collapse of global milk prices is having far-reaching effects here in New Zealand with the viability of dairy farms being severely tested.
Dairy farmers’ reluctance to purchase supplementary feed has left much of the cereal crop and winter fodder areas unsold, with growers searching for mouths to eat the winter fodder and alternatives to plant for the new season.
Here at Valetta, we have been fortunate to secure similar or greater areas of white clover, ryegrass, carrot and hybrid oilseed rape seed crops for autumn sowing and will seek to increase our springsown areas of seed peas, borage and radish crops, but this will very much turn on contract availability.
Our plan is to load up our crop rotation with as many non-grain crops as possible as we focus our farm system on our ABCs – anything but cereals.
The next few weeks are critical for yield and AICC agronomist Antony Wade points to several threats that could spoil otherwise reasonable looking crops. For example, the mild winter may see crown rust in oats.
Sean Sparling highlights that yellow rust and septoria pressure remains high and aphid numbers are rapidy rising in wheat crops.
For Paul Sweeney, it’s barley yellow dwarf virus which is spoiling wheat crops, as it becomes evident that aphids were flying in December.
Finally, Richard Harding looks ahead to the T3 fungicide timing and believes aphid control may also need to be considered in the mix.
EAST
Sean Sparling
AICC (Lincolnshire)
⁕ It’s the beginning of June and, for the first time in a few years, we are still applying flag leaf sprays to the later drillings.
Fortunately most of my winter wheat has had its flag leaf spray protecting it for 10 -14 days and that could prove very important in the weeks to come. Currently the septoria and yellow rust pressure is as high as I’ve seen it for a number of years.
Aphid numbers are rapidly increasing in wheats and so we may have to deal with this pest for the first time in a number of years.
It all now depends upon the weather – because if those forecasters are right and it does come hot and dry for the next three months, brown rust will be the issue. Unfortunately, the same people predicted that it was going to be a long cold summer of Atlantic storms, so hedging one’s bets will once again be the best approach.
Oilseed rape is now going out of flower rapidly, I think most of us would say that light leaf spot has been a challenge this season, sclerotinia has been less so thanks to the cool weather.
However, there have been some issues with some of the more backward oilseed rape crops where late frosts have caused some main racemes to abort all buds and, therefore, setting no pods. This seems confined to the areas which were slow getting away in the autumn and equally slow this spring.
It could be attributable to all aspects of stress and we have seen this before. Yields are always better than they appear – we will wait and see.
Linseed is being slaughtered by flea beetle in some areas of Lincolnshire, with several fields being written off on one farm alone, despite multiple applications of insecticide. Are we getting to the stage where oilseed rape and linseed are going to be impossible to grow without neonicotinoid seed dressings?
Sasaagronomy@gmail.com
Richard Harding
SOUTH
Richard Harding
Procam(Sussex)
⁕ Winter barley crops on the Downs are now all fully out in ear and looking impressive. Ideal growing conditions during May have really helped late-sown spring crops get well established and more borderline winter crops are now showing potential.
Forage maize has been going into ideal seed-beds and good levels of moisture are also allowing well-timed pre-emergence herbicide applications of pendimethalin.
Wheat ears are emerging on many crops now and have emerged on the more forward crops for a number of weeks. Many T2 fungicides are only just being completed in some areas, but T3 options now being planned.
These will be largely based around prothioconazole, tebuconazole and spiroxamine for late mildew control, which seems more noticeable this season.
The optimum timing for best effect on fusarium and mycotoxins is preflowering which is likely to mean a short interval between the T2 and T3 applications for some crops.
Growers can still top-up nitrogen on wheats which have a high yield potential
TIM SCRIVENER
Aphid numbers are still high despite recent cooler conditions and will continue to be monitored, and control may need to be factored in with the T3 fungicides. Numbers are also building in pulses, particularly peas.
Both chocolate spot and rust are building in winter beans, with many having had or due to have a T2 fungicide application of cyproconazole + chlorthalonil. Bruchid beetle monitoring is now taking place as spring beans move towards flowering and first pod set.
Overall oilseed rape crops are looking like they have good yield potential. The latest sclerotinia report for this season shows the risk levels are dropping with many crops now at the tail end of flowering and are back to an overall green appearance again.
Richard.harding@procam.co.uk
Paul Sweeney
NORTH
Paul Sweeney
AICC (Cheshire/Lancashire)
⁕ With a good spell of settled weather, crops have now made up for lost ground. Fungicides applications at the T2 timing were all finished in good time and no “septoria time bomb” appeared – surprise, surprise.
All we need now is more rain because it’s been quite dry in Cheshire and very dry in Lancashire, especially near the coast. Winter crops will be fine for a while, but spring sowings are starting to struggle already.
Oats are coming to head slowly and should have something cheap to keep crown rust away, probably a low dose of strobilurin to help improve specific weights.
What is spoiling many wheat crops is the amount of barley yellow dwarf virus, especially in those surrounded by trees. Infection is not severe in terms of stunting, it’s more just extensive yellowing, so they will hopefully tolerate it without a great impact on yield.
Given that it has affected both crops with insecticide seed treatment and those sprayed with insecticide up to mid-November, it must be down to aphids arriving just prior to Christmas – when it was so wet that treatment was impossible anyway.
There is a bit of mildew in the wheat, but nothing to worry about – and the rust problems seem to have been well controlled with fungicides. Septoria control has been excellent and will remain so as disease pressure has abated.
They can wait till heads are fully emerged and then be treated with T3s as soon as flowering commences with something effective for fusarium species, but there is no need to throw excessive cash at them now.
Spring cereals have developed rapidly, but need more rain soon if they are to stand a chance of coming to something reasonable. Make sure that weed control is effective and disease, especially mildew, is controlled.
⁕ I always think winter crops in late May and into early June can look their best, although they can both flatter and deceive when it comes to the end of the season, as the coming weeks are critical in terms of final yield.
Flattery comes in the form of barley that has now romped into ear, finally put on some normal height and wheat with visible septoria symptoms confined to lower leaves and yellow rust kept in check.
Then there are oats with low mildew levels and are short thus masquerading as having a low lodging risk and oilseed rape with good open canopies and not too tall.
Potential deception may reveal itself in brome, ryegrass and wild oats eventually overtaking barley and spoiling the uninterrupted sea of awns and in wheat, uncontrolled septoria infection after a delayed T1 reducing green leaf area early and limiting efficient radiation conversion.
Crown rust may erupt in oats after a mild winter reducing grain filling and specific weight and oilseed rape stems with abundant light leaf spot.
Spring crops are still early in their short season that has to be even faster paced than normal due to later than ideal sowing dates, but also look to have made a good start.
Barley is tillering well and getting its first fungicide, growth regulator and herbicide where pre-emergences were not applied. Beans have got away without significant pea and bean weevil damage and are now out of danger with pre-emergence herbicides having done a good job generally.
Hopefully, my predicted deceit will be outweighed by the flattery helped by some good yield forming radiation over the coming weeks. But I am fairly sure that the flattery won’t get us anywhere near the performance levels which we saw from most crops last season.
⁕ It’s not too late to top-up nitrogen on wheat where you can see that they have high yield potential and are undernourished, but don’t waste more money on any poor crops.
If they look chronically short of nitrogen then check the sulphur status because that’s likely to be the reason.
The first new area is the Drone Zone, where farmers can discover how to operate a drone, work the video camera, programme a flight and use the data to create variablerate applications.
By pre-registering or collecting a voucher on the day, visitors will not only be able to have a go, but will also receive a follow-up presentation on how to use the information the drone collected on their flight.
Keith Geary of G2Way explains: “After the trial flights we will take visitors through the information and data they have gathered and explain how this can support business decisions about weed control, reducing input costs and drainage decisions, for example.”
To register interest email keith@g2way.com specifying the day (15 or 16 June), morning or afternoon, saying whether you are an agronomist or farmer; how many hectares you are responsible for and whether you already use precision techniques on your own farm.
2 THE SOIL PIT
The second novel feature at this year’s event is the Soil Pit – a trench farmers can step down into to see first-hand how cover crops can improve soil structure.
Sponsored by Niab Tag and Rothamsted Research, the Soil Pit is 4m wide, 1.2m deep and 8m long – gives visitors a great chance to examine below-ground benefits of four cover crops selected for their strong root growth.
Winter and spring rye, winter wheat and spring barley have been sown on the other side of the Soil Pit for comparison, and a sub-soiler will be used to provide a backdrop for the latest advice.
THE FOUR COVER CROPS ARE
⁕ Tillage radish: A brassica that can grow rapidly in the autumn, producing deep roots to help rectify structural issues and “mop up” nitrogen to reduce input costs.
⁕ Radish and spring oat mix: Deep-rooting brassica (radish) and vigorous cereal (oats) combine to provide good ground cover and soil improvements.
⁕ Spring oats, radish, vetch and phacelia mix: Wide-ranging mix with vetch – a vigorous legume that picks up nitrogen at different times of the year.
⁕ Crimson clover, black medick and vetch mix: Three nitrogenfixing legumes which complement each other well.
3 SYNGENTA SPRAYS & SPRAYERS
The Sprays & Sprayers area profiles the most up-to-date innovations. This year’s key launches include John Deere’s early preview of its new R4050i self-propelled sprayer. The model will be available in limited numbers from early 2017.
Vicon will be demonstrating its new iXdrive self-propelled sprayer, first seen earlier this year. The company’s first trailed sprayer, which is set for production later this year, will also be on display.
TIM SCRIVENER
4 VARIETY PLOTS
A popular part of the event for growers is the AHDB and Niab Tag variety plots, offering the chance to see new varieties and candidates for the first time. It is a chance to learn more, helping with variety decisions for the upcoming autumn drilling season.
A key theme with current low prices and high disease pressure this year will be maximising the value of disease resistance.
The seed trade now expects varieties with enhanced disease resistance such as Siskin, Illustrious and Costello to attract attention.
TIM SCRIVENER
5 CONFERENCES
With Cereals being held just a week before the key EU referendum, the key panel debate organised by the Oxford Farming Conference will look at arguments for both the leave and remain sides.
Other topics being covered in half-hour technical seminar include tackling blackgrass and no-till farming.
CEREALS 2016
⁕ Tickets are available to buy online for the two-day event on 15 and 16 June, near Duxford Cambridgeshire.
Watch our video with Association of Independent Crops Consultants agronomist Matthew Paterson highlighting some key crop plots to visit at Cereals. Go to www.fwi.co.uk/cereals-plots cereals-plots
Winter wheat newcomers Graham and Zulu could become well-established varieties in the North due to their early maturity as well as good yields and disease resistance.
Growers in Scotland and northern England are focused on early maturity because of their later harvests, and Andrew Wallace, agronomist at advisory group Agrii, believes these two varieties could do well.
“Graham is good for early drilling and early maturity, and has good yields and a good disease-resistance package,” he tells Farmers Weekly.
Mr Wallace believes the variety could take some of the early drilling market share that is held by Grafton, while challenging the dominance of the variety Leeds in the North.
Leeds has done well in Mr Wallace’s region of Northumberland to East Lothian, but it has a weakness for mildew and so Graham may take some of its share.
Biscuit-making wheat Zulu could also find popularity at the expense of Myriad, which, like Leeds, is a soft milling wheat and is favoured by distillers.
“Zulu looks an early maturing variety, shows good early spring vigour with good disease resistance and fits in to a mid- to late-drilling slot,” he says.
Mr Wallace adds Reflection is also an early maturing variety and has not seen the high levels of yellow rust that have been seen further south.
Later maturing varieties Evolution and Revelation look good on yield and disease resistance, but their late harvest is likely to restrict their level of uptake in the North.
On winter barleys, Mr Wallace sees Infinity as an advance on fellow KWS varieties Glacier and Tower, with slightly better yield and good resistance to rhynchosporium.
“Infinity looks a slight improvement on Tower and Glacier and could give growers up here another option,” he says.
Mr Wallace adds that growers are increasingly looking at good specific weights for barley as well as yield and disease resistance, and this is reflected in the renewed interest in two-row barleys instead of six-row barleys.
Growing winter oats on a milling contract offers a tasty premium with lower input costs compared with other break crops, while also helping to reduce the risk of take-all.
Cheshire grower and recently appointed AHDB monitor farmer Robert Cross has seen winter oats grown on the family farm for more than 25 years. Now he’s got ambitions to drive his oat yields up to 10t/ha.
Mr Cross farms 283ha of mostly Grade 3 heavy clay land just outside of Warrington, some 20 miles east of Liverpool, growing winter wheat, winter barley, oilseed rape and spring beans.
The winter oats are mainly grown on a long-standing contract for Crewe-based miller Morning Foods, which produces breakfast cereals such as muesli, granola and porridge. A smaller area is also grown for seed.
Mr Cross tells Farmers Weekly that demand for oats is steadily rising and the crop plays a key role in his rotation.
“I remember the days when if you didn’t have a contract for oats you just couldn’t sell them. Now there is a more balanced demand for oats and it is growing,” says Mr Cross
While UK stocks of wheat and barley have been swelling in recent years, the opposite is predicted for oats.
At the end of the 2015-16 season, UK oat stocks are expected to be down 11% year-on-year to 94,000t, according to the latest Defra estimates.
Mr Cross adds that current prices for winter oats are about £120/t ex-farm, which is roughly £5 above winter milling wheat at present, making it a profitable option in times of generally low grain prices.
“Winter oats are a good break crop, they require less inputs compared with wheat and barley and they spread the work at harvest.
“The crop helps to reduce the risks of getting take-all and that means you can put a good crop of winter wheat in afterwards.”
Mr Cross says his winter oats cost him about £347/ha in variable growing costs, considerably less than a comparable yielding wheat crop.
Being drilled towards the end of September and into early October, this gives growers the perfect window of opportunity for some out-of-crop blackgrass control.
Blackgrass isn’t a problem that Mr Cross has to deal with – one of the virtues of farming arable land in north-west England, but he agrees that growing winter oats could help with weed control.
“The main problem we have is with broad-leaved weeds. I find oats to be a competitive crop and they really help to out compete any weeds.”
When cereal prices are low, winter oats could give growers a premium over milling wheat and they are also cheaper to grow than other cereals
YIELDS
One of the reasons Mr Cross wanted to become an AHDB Monitor Farmer was to find ways of raising yields across the board, but particularly on his winter oats.
The farm’s long-term average yield for the crop is about 7.5t/ha and last year saw the crop hit a bumper 8t/ha.
“I wanted to become a monitor farmer to help me be as good a grower as I can be, but also to help with knowledge transfer.
“I also want to get yields higher on every crop I grow and my ambition is to get the oats to 10t/ha,” he explains.
He thinks more can be done to fine tune nitrogen applications to improve oat yields and says better information on fungicide performance would help too, along with encouraging the millers to accept newer, higher-yielding varieties.
“I want to find out if we could nudge the nitrogen up a bit from the 125kg/ha total and see what that does for the yields.”
Applying more nitrogen comes with its risks though, as an overly forward crop will suffer from lodging, which can cost 0.5t/ha.
This means it is crucial to get nitrogen applications and timings correct, with effective use of growth regulators to help manage the lodging risk.
This year he is growing the variety Lineout from breeder RAGT, which made its debut on the AHDB Recommended List last December and promises to yield higher than all of the varieties that came before it.
As is the way with malting barley varieties, the oat millers dictate which varieties they accept and this is part of the reason for the slow development in crop yields.
“The millers can be quite ruthless when it comes to varieties, they still like the older varieties such as Gerald which first came on to the Recommended List in 1993,” explains Mr Cross.
Hitting the right specific weight is also key, with 51kg/hl being the standard to aim for. With oats being such a light and husky crop, this is something to keep an eye on.
DISEASE
There are just two main diseases to worry about when growing oats: mildew and crown rust.
Mr Cross says the former is much easier to control than the latter.“If you’ve got mildew you can clear that up at T1 with Talius (proquinazid) at 0.15 litres/ha.
“But you really want to avoid getting crown rust at all costs because this will hit the specific weight and drop the yield by about 30%.
“If you see crown rust then it’s too late because it will just explode through the crop. When chosing a variety, you really don’t want to be growing anything with less than a five [rating] for crown rust.”
The T2 fungicide spray timing is the prime time to build the specific weight up, and Mr Cross tends to go in with Priori Xtra (azoxystrobin + cyproconazole) at 0.6 litres/ha.
He adds that one of the biggest challenges of growing a minority crop like winter oats is a general lack of information on fungicide performance and there are limited herbicide options available too. For example, Avadex (tri-allate) cannot be used in oats.
The crop is also more susceptible to barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) than both wheat and barley, prompting some growers to drill Deter (clothianidin) treated seed.
Mr Cross doesn’t consider the risk to be great enough to warrant the cost in his part of the country.
While he doesn’t use a pre-emergence herbicide, he does use a postemergence spray of Lexus Class (carfentrazone + flupyrsulfuron) and adds the insecticide Hallmark (lambda-cyhalothrin) to control aphids spreading BYDV.
HARVEST
In the North-West, winter oats are typically ready for harvest from the first week of August onwards, depending on the season.
Mr Cross says he doesn’t ever need to desiccate the crop, but it is often the case that the oats will be ready for harvest when the straw is still slightly green.
“Morning Foods like the oat to have a good colour, so don’t leave the crop in the field too long once it’s ready.
“If you get a catchy week it can push the wheat harvest back a bit, but you will find that if it does turn wet and wheat moisture is at 19% then the oats will be at about 16% and they don’t take much drying either.” There is also a risk of getting mite in the grain store, so Mr Cross tends to put the burner on for half an hour or so.
This will help process the crop and shake out the dust and it also helps to improve the specific weight further.
He always tries to chop the straw to avoid removing too much phosphate (P) and potash (K), but sometimes this can be difficult because oat straw is waxy compared with wheat or barley and the crop produces a lot of residue.
“Oats use a lot of P and K so I try not to remove the straw at harvest. If you do you’ll lose about 160kg/ha in K and 80kg/ha of P.” oli.hill@rbi.co.uk
OAT AGRONOMICS
⁕ Drill date: Late-September to early-October
⁕ Seed rate: 250 seeds/sq m
⁕ Nitrogen:
Total: 125kg/ha
Split 40kg/ha in mid-March and 85kg/ha in mid-April
⁕ Fungicide:
T1: Moddus (trinexapac-ethyl) at 0.2 litres/ha, chlormequat at 1.25 litres/ha and Tracker (boscalid + epoxiconazole) at 0.6 litres/ha
T2: Priori Xtra (azoxystrobin + cyproconazole) at 0.6 litres/ha
Strong disease resistance, consistent performance and good grain quality are key attributes looked for by winter wheat growers and these are highlighted in Limagrain’s five varieties looking for official recommendation this year.
Ed Flatman, the group’s senior wheat breeder, says 19 varieties are being assessed for the AHDB Recommended List, and all arecoming under high disease pressure especially from yellow rust.
“We’ve seen a move towards the safer varieties in recent seasons, such as Crusoe and Revelation, and that is only likely to continue,” he said at a recent group briefing.
SON OF CRUSOE
Among the group’s new varieties, Cassidy is a Group 2 milling wheat and has a fungicide treated yield of 104%, putting it on a par with Lili and just behind Siskin.
“It’s a son of Crusoe and has inherited the distinctive vivid green plant colour typical of its parentage. As well as its breadmaking suitability, it also has export potential,” he says.
A specific weight of 78.1kg/hl and a protein of 11.5% are better than those of existing Group 2s, although it has a lower Hagberg of 231. The variety has a yellow rust score of 9, with 5s for brown rust and septoria.
It is a variety which can be late sown, while its good second wheat performance is close to that of its parents, Crusoe and Panorama.
BISCUIT-MAKER
Bletchley is a potential biscuit wheat, has similar parentage to Zulu and has potential for the biscuit, export and distilling markets.
A treated yield of 102% is backed up by a very high untreated yield of 90%, which is reflected in its disease resistance ratings of 8 for yellow rust, 9 for brown rust, 6 for mildew and 5 for septoria. It also has orange wheat blossom midge (OWBM) resistance.
It has a lowish Hagberg of 192, while it has a specific weight of 76.7kg/hl and a protein of 11.5%.
Ed Flatman says that growers have shifted recently to safer varieties
THREE FEEDERS
Three soft feed wheats are also lining up for recommendation: two from the Limagrain breeding programme, Sundance and Motown, and one from Sejet’s breeding in Denmark, Stratosphere, which also produced Evolution.
Sundance takes the soft Group 4s to a new yield level of 105%, as well as bringing an untreated yield of 90%, and suitability for export and distilling.
Its septoria rating of 7, which is based on at least two genes, will be a big attraction, while its other disease scores are good and it has OWBM resistance.
It is a high-tillering variety with a slower growth habit in the spring, so it may be a good choice for the early drilling slot, while it is also late maturing.
Motown has export and distilling suitability and a yield of 105%. An untreated yield of 92% is among the best.
“Motown is more like Revelation, with its earlier maturity and OWBM resistance. It has a very strong disease resistance package, which includes a 6 for septoria,” he says.
Stratosphere has a yield of 106% and is a soft feed variety with a low specific weight. It is earlier than other high-yielding feed types, has OWBM resistance and has a high untreated yield.
fwarable@rbi.co.uk
OILSEED RAPE NEWCOMING VARIETIES WILL OFFER ADDED BENEFITS
⁕ A conventional, a hybrid and a clubroot resistant variety are in the winter oilseed rape line-up from Limagrain – all of which bring better disease resistance ratings.
Limagrain has a UK oilseeds breeding programme, and senior breeder Vasilis Gegas (right) says it will breed conventional varieties while there is demand.
Artic, a candidate for both the East/West and North regions, is a conventional type with 7s for both light leaf spot and stem canker.
A gross output of 105% in the East/West and 108% in the North is supported by a very high oil content of 46.5%, while it has medium maturity and good standing ability.
“Artic has the right balance of agronomic features, with no weaknesses. Its ease of management is likely to appeal to farmers,” says Dr Gegas.
Aquila, a hybrid variety, is a candidate for the East/West region. A gross output of 106% and an oil content of 45.5% are backed up by an 8 rating for stem canker and a 6 for light leaf spot.
“Aquila is a taller, but stiff, variety. It also has the pod shatter resistance that will be found in all of our forthcoming hybrid varieties,” he says.
Archimedes is a clubroot resistant hybrid which has completed National Listing but will not be going through the Recommended List process.
Although it has a gross output lower than Mentor, at 96%, it is earlier and has a higher stem canker rating of 8, as well as a light leaf spot score of 6.
“It also has better autumn vigour and pod shatter resistance – factors which are very relevant for the North.”
