Cereal lists welcome newcomers

With 22 newcomers added and 27 old-timers removed, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) launched its recommended lists for cereals for the 2018-19 season yesterday.

Whilethethreenewmalting varieties joining the list – LG Diablo and Tomahawk along with RGT Asteroid – all showed considerable yield improvements over the stalwart Concerto, the AHDB’S Jenna Watt said that commercial malting tests – likely to be the final arbiters of any future success – still had to be completed.

The new varieties were also later maturing than Concerto, another important factor in varietal choice – especially with the problems during the tailend of the 2017 harvest still fresh in growers’ minds.

With the performance of Belgravia, Dioptric, LG Opera, Octavia and Odyssey falling behind others on the list, these varieties were removed from the 2018-19 spring barley lists.

On the winter wheat front, the group 3 variety Elicit was new to the 201819 recommended list to help fill the biscuit-making market segment. Boasting a combination of high yields and disease resistance, Watt said that Elicit’s Septoria tritici rating, the highest of all the group 3 varieties, was of particular note and it’s generally high disease rating gave it the best untreated yield on the list.

She said there had also been steady improvements in feed wheat – with two new soft and two new hard group 4 wheat varieties listed, with the soft varieties, KWS Jackal and Elation also providing good opportunities for grain distilling.

Winter oilseed rape varieties saw the addition of four new conventional varieties to the list for the north region. AHDB said these varieties were high yielding in this region with short, stiff stems and all had good resistance to light leaf spot.