Limagrain carried out three snap Twitter polls on people’s perception of hard and soft wheats and when looking for a high yielding wheat, 39% of respondents said they would still choose a hard grain type.

The same proportion thought hard wheats would typically out-yield their soft milling cousins and finally, a significant 56% thought that hard wheats produce a better grain quality than soft wheats.

Limagrain UK’s arable technical manager; Ron Granger challenges this preconception. “15-20 years ago, soft wheats such as Riband, Consort, Claire and Robigus were dominating the UK wheat area, offering premium qualities and yields on par with hard feed wheats on the AHDB Recommended List.

However, higher feed wheat demand and improved prices, plus a surge of top yielding hard milling feed wheats from breeders, saw the so-called “barn fillers” take over, as everyone strived for maximum grain output from their crops.

“This has led to the perception in some quarters, that the highest yielding wheats are hard endosperm types, and we need to dispel that myth,” says Mr Granger.

Highest yielder

Perhaps the variety to do that is soft Group 4 LG Skyscraper, which joined the 2019/20 AHDB Recommended List as the highest yielding UK wheat by 2% and has a range of additional traits attractive to all feed wheat growers.

Bred in the UK, it has shown consistently high yields in trials across varying seasons and has demonstrated that same potential in first and second wheat slots, on heavy and light soils and when drilled late in the autumn.

On top of its high output, other agronomic attributes include; early maturity, a good disease resistance package, orange wheat blossom midge resistance and a strong tillering ability combined with fast spring growth – which makes it ideal for blackgrass situations.

Grain quality characteristics of a large grain, combined with a good Hagberg falling number of 221 and a high specific weight of 77.2 kg/hl, make it an attractive package when compared to other feed wheat varieties.

Mr Granger believes the variety’s all-round package should be considered by any feed wheat grower and not just those in traditional soft wheat-growing heartlands of the north of England and Scotland.

“It’s no coincidence that the variety performs very well in the south east; an area associated with a drier climate – after all, this is where the variety was bred.”

“We know it has high yield potential and with the bonus of distilling potential, there might be additional premiums to be had over standard hard milling feed wheats,” he adds.

Download LG Skyscraper technical summary for more information.

Header photo credit: Rob King

With livestock farmers looking to rebuild forage stocks, there will be increased interest in either growing maize on contract with a local arable farmer, or buying standing crops.

Maize works well as an alternative to spring cereals in the rotation and can be a useful break crop if blackgrass is an issue.

As the objectives of the end user and grower are different, it is vital to select the right variety. The livestock farmer will be interested in both the quality and total yield of forage, focussing on characteristics like dry matter yield, starch content and cell wall digestibility. AD plant operators will want to maximise energy yield to optimise methane production.

The grower will be more concerned with fresh yield and early maturity, to harvest in time to allow for an autumn sown crop to be established in the rotation.

First, look for the correct maturity of varieties to suit your site. Then, select varieties with improved early vigour for rapid establishment. Finally, select for yield and quality parameters to ensure your maize will combine high yields with excellent feed quality.

Following this process will ensure you produce forage that will meet both you and your end users’ needs’.

Why would that be? Surely if it’s a malting variety, there must be a market for it!

Perhaps we can help by explaining the malting approval process that all barley varieties in the UK must go through.

To do this, we have to go back to the three harvest years before LG Diablo appeared on the AHDB Recommended List. In each of these three years, not only did AHDB gather yield and agronomic data but samples were taken and tested for their suitability for the three malting barley categories in the UK:

• Brewing
• Malt distilling
• Grain distilling

These were Micro Malting Tests, carried out on small trials samples by an industry group working to exacting protocols, called the Micro Malting Group (MMG).

The results were passed to Malting Barley Committee (MBC), made up of representatives of maltsters and end users who control the approval system and advise the AHDB on whether or not the variety is suitable for use as a malting barley. This process is the guarantee to seeds sellers, agronomists, growers and grain merchants, that a malting barley is just that – ‘a malting barley’.

Three years of testing brings us to December 2017. The MBC advised the AHDB that LG Diablo was suitable as a potential malting barley for use by distillers and brewers, so it was duly added to the 2018/19 Recommended List as the highest yielding spring barley, with provisional malting approval.

The good news for the supply chain is that the testing process continues into a fourth year.

It’s all well and good saying that a small trial sample has sound malting quality but what happens when you put hundreds of tonnes into a malting and then into a brewery or distillery? Does it process as well as the old varieties, does it give a high spirit yield? Does it produce cloudy beer?

There is only one way to find out. The maltsters and end users need to carry out macro, industrial scale trials.

Such was the huge interest in LG Diablo, that over 5000 tonnes of grain was produced from harvest 2018, for up to 10 full scale brewing and distilling trials. These trials are now underway.

The results of the trials will be reported to the MBC, and when the MBC meets in May 2019, they will decide whether LG Diablo should be given full approval. When we sow the 2020 crop, we will all know whether LG Diablo is fully approved or not, but that doesn’t help growers decide what to do this year!

The enthusiasm for LG Diablo seems to grow. The trial crops all yielded well, growers are happy, and the results so far have been encouraging.

Maltsters must now make decisions about what contracts to offer for harvest 2019. Although some will wait to see what the MBC decides in May, many will have already made the decision to produce larger volumes of LG Diablo so that they can carry out even bigger trials.

So, what does this all mean?
It means that LG Diablo has widespread support from the industry, but it will not be fully approved until after you harvest this year’s crop. If your grain buyer can offer you a contract, then you should take the opportunity to try this exciting new barley and if you can’t get a contract, then perhaps there is not too much risk, as LG Diablo looks to us, to be a real winner!

Following two very successful events in 2014 and 2016, this prestigious event will raise funds for the Jon Egging Trust, the Lincolnshire Agricultural Society and LRSN.

For the third year running, Limagrain UK is the Champagne Reception sponsor, with three other Lincolnshire businesses; Brown and Co, Smailes Goldie Turner and Wilkin Chapman LLP also returning as main Dinner Sponsors.

Chair of the organising committee, Meryl Ward, said: “We are incredibly grateful for the continued support of the four corporate sponsors, so far announced. They all supported our efforts in 2016 when we raised more than £40,000; now we want to build on that success and our aim is to raise even more money for the charities involved this year.

The third Lincolnshire Rural Charities dinner will provide a memorable and unique way to tell their stories and by raising money for them, will enable them to continue the great work they do in the county.”

The evening will celebrate the three charities’ work to support communities throughout Lincolnshire and beyond. With a theme of “Past, Present and Future”, guests will be guaranteed a sumptuous meal of Lincolnshire produce designed and introduced by Steven Bennett, “The Lincolnshire Chef”, of Healing Manor fame. But the food is only part of the evening’s entertainment.

Hosted by our favourite MC, Sean Sparling, there’ll be fun and frivolity as well as the opportunity to find out more about the three charities’ essential work. The dinner will build on the success of the two previous events, which raised tens of thousands of pounds for charitable causes in the county.

Tickets are on sale now at £800 for tables of 10 or £80 for individual tickets. For more information on ticket sales, please email della.armstrong@lrsn.co.uk

Enticed by Adam Simper at Wynnstay, Kevin, who manages the farm for Marigold de Quincey, drilled 2ha of the new kale variety Bombardier in mid May 2018 and started strip grazing the field in late October.

The 40 spring-calving suckler cows took to the kale immediately. “I gave them a 10-meter strip to start with, then I moved the fence 2m each day,” says Kevin. “They cleaned up the crop well and ate all the stems and leaves; there wasn’t much left at the end of the day and they were waiting for me to move the fence each morning.”

The cows were back-fenced so they could run back on to the grass. They also had access to straw and feed blocks as part of their diet. “It provided valuable extra winter forage. We overwinter the cattle outdoors – they only come in to calve, so producing as much home-grown forage – of good feed quality – is important to us,” adds Kevin,” who runs the mainly Hereford cross cows on his mixed arable, beef and sheep unit at Upton Magna, Shrewsbury.

The kale seed was drilled on a rough piece of ground that had been badly rutted following a wet winter. The land was disced and then power harrowed and Kevin sowed the seed from a spinner off his quad bike.

“The soil is thin on this part of the farm, and we didn’t irrigate the crop,” he says, adding that the only help he gave the crop was 40 units of liquid fertiliser. “We had no rain at all for a few months; it’s amazing how it survived. I think there must have been just enough moisture to get it going and then enough leaf cover to prevent it drying out completely. At one point the whole crop wilted but it was saved by rain a few days later.”

An extended summer and warm autumn held temperatures above the seasonal norm and the kale kept growing. Even when the cows moved onto the crop in late October it was still growing.

“It was trial and error,” he adds. “But the cattle did well on this kale crop and we grazed it until mid January. They then moved onto grass before coming indoors late February, ahead of calving.”

Kevin plans to follow the kale with a grass reseed and, impressed with the robustness of the crop, he’s growing more Bombardier kale on another field ready for winter grazing in 2019.

More mileage from kale

Poor stem quality  – that may have been 60% to 70% of the total yield, has often limited the feed value of forage kales but new varieties, that have softer and more digestible stems,  have improved the feed value and utilisation of the crop.

“Bombardier is a good example,” says Limagrain’s forage crops manager Martin Titley. “It was a new variety to the UK market in Spring 2018 and has been bred for improved stem and leaf utilisation.”

Trials have shown that this new variety has a digestibility of 72.2% and a dry matter content of 13.5%, with a relative dry matter yield of 18% above the control variety, that’s 1.74 tonnes more from each hectare. It is expected to produce between 70 tonnes to 80 tonnes of fresh yield per hectare and between nine and 11 tonnes per hectare of dry matter.

“In the past, farmers have faced a bit of a dilemma when it comes to kale,” adds Mr Titley. “If the kale crop is grazed well, then crop utilisation is good but the poor feed value in the stem will limit liveweight gain. A less well-grazed crop, where a proportion of the stem is left, will achieve better liveweight gains but poorer crop utilisation.

“Marrow stem kales like Bombardier are highly digestible and have improved dry matter yields and utilisation potential, can overcome this dilemma.”

Kale is best drilled in May or early June at a seed rate of 5kg per hectare. Farmers are encouraged to opt for varieties that are club root tolerant and where the seed can be supplied with a fungicide seed treatment.

“The great benefit of a kale crop is its flexibility,” says Mr Titley. “It can be used any time from September to February, so it is ideal for outwintering production systems and it is a popular choice for dairy young stock, beef cattle and sheep.”

Limagrain grass seed manger Ian Misselbrook encourages contractors to make sure that they are using good quality clover and grass seed mixtures, and preferably seed that has been tested and treated to promote rapid establishment and reduced weed infestation.

“Contractors can be doing a great job of preparing a fine seedbed and ensure good sowing procedures, but if the seed quality is below par, the crop won’t meet expectations,” says Mr Misselbrook. “This isn’t an ideal scenario, and to counter this, contractors may be better sourcing seed on behalf of their customers, or at least making sure the seed is of a reputable quality.”

Testing and treatment procedures offers those using Limagrain seed a quality assurance. “We have two ISTA-regulated seed laboratories that test seed samples regularly. And most of the grass seed mixtures and pelleted clover seed sold through Limagrain is coated with the biological germination accelerator Headstart® Gold.”

“…if the seed quality is below par the crop won’t meet expectations” Says Mr Misselbrook

Headstart® was originally developed for seed used in the renovation of winter sports pitches and it is now used by more than 60% of premier football clubs and rugby clubs. It contains a balanced package of minerals and trace elements that are essential for the successful establishment of seedlings. The advantages of this treatment are translated to forage grasses too.

“We’ve seen significant advantages in trials over untreated seed in the germination of the crop, even in a difficult season. And in the case of clovers, seed treated with Headstart® is easier to sow and heavier, which improves the soil to seed contact.

 “Sowing high quality, treated seed is a damage limitation exercise really,” he adds.

Striving for higher wheat yields has meant a slight trend towards later maturing varieties that stay greener for longer sitting at the top of AHDB Recommended List.

The trade-off is potential management issues in certain situations and, when twinned with doubts over the future of pre-harvest glyphosate applications, highlights a need to place increased importance on maturity when selecting varieties.

“Maturity” on the Recommended List is expressed as the amount of time, in days, taken to ripen in comparison to a benchmark variety, which is currently hard Group 4 feed wheat JB Diego (0).

Across the 41 varieties in five end-use groups on the list, just two two are earlier than JB Diego – Group 2 milling wheat Cordiale (-2) and hard Group 4 Grafton (-1). A further 13 match JB Diego and all others range from +1 to the latest-maturing +3 of KWS Lili and Revelation.

Delayed ripening

While the later varieties with scores of +2 or +3 tend not to be problematic in the south, in the north where temperatures are cooler, any delay in ripening can put considerable pressure on harvesting operations in the usually catchy conditions of late September.

Limagrain’s wheat breeder Ed Flatman says maturity scores are also exaggerated the further north they are drilled, with +2 or +3 days being about a week to 10 days later than the earliest varieties.

In Scottish trials, it is often observed that an early variety like Gallant is a sandy colour in August, while Revelation remains a very dark green. In Kent during a dry summer, this is much less pronounced.

“We can also see ears ripen, but secondary tillers hold on to green straw and leaves, which is down to a mixture of a variety’s genetics and the [fungicide] chemistry applied.

“Where growers are buying combines with a 40ft cut, they are being held up [by a tough crop] and the efficiency that [machinery] investment is aiming to provide is lost,” explains Mr Flatman.

Light land

It isn’t just in the north where maturity might be an important consideration. Growers on the lightest land look for earlier-maturing varieties to ensure crops ripen rather than dying off and compromising yield in drought conditions, such as those seen this season.

In addition, where the wheat is followed by oilseed rape, harvesting the crop early can help provide an early entry into the break crop – key to maximising yield potential.

Finally, milling wheat growers will also look to use early maturity to take advantage of the best harvesting conditions and reduce the risk of quality losses.

“It can also be advantageous for millers to get some grain delivered at the earliest opportunity, to get an idea of milling quality and baking performance for the new season,” adds Mr Flatman.

Glyphosate debate

Whatever the reason for growing earlier varieties, ripening needs to occur in a controlled and even way, and at the right time. To achieve this, many growers turn to broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate to get crops fit for harvest, particularly in northern England and Scotland.

Southern Scotland-based Nickerson seed specialist Douglas Bonn says that with varieties generally needing to match or improve yields on the Recommended List to make the cut, new additions have become later and later over recent seasons, increasing the need for pre-harvest glyphosate use in cooler climes.

Despite the active ingredient surviving the European Commission vote on its re-registration last year, the debate on its future is likely to rumble on, particularly in relation to burning off wheat destined for human consumption.

If this use is lost from the label, or the active lost altogether, much more emphasis will need to be placed on genetics to bring forward ripening on at least some of a farm’s wheat acreage, which typically comprises of two or three varieties.

“That is particularly so for big farms, who need to look at maturity to avoid delays at harvest. We must reduce our reliance on Roundup (glyphosate),” adds Mr Bonn.

Soft wheat options

Mr Flatman says to do so, breeders like Limagrain are looking to produce varieties with a spread of maturity scores in each end-use group, without compromising yield, to help growers in situations where earlier maturity might be required.

In the North of England and Scotland, soft Group 4 feed wheats for the distilling market dominate in drilling plans.

Although drilling earlier can help bring harvest date forward slightly, where growers are delayed in the autumn or planting behind potatoes, using maturity score is crucial.

In the soft Group 4, there is now a handful of varieties with medium maturity, including LG Motown (0), Moulton (0) and Savello (0), that will finish earlier than popular soft wheats; Leeds (+2) and Revelation (+3).

“Farmers growing soft feed wheats are in a good position, being able to choose from a few different varieties with a range of maturity scores and characteristics,” says Mr Flatman.

He adds that Limagrain’s soft wheat, LG Skyscraper, is also likely to attract interest in the North, being the highest yielding of last year’s candidates and one of the earliest maturing, with a score of 0.

“It offers a big yield improvement, but with a mid-range maturity and should be on the Recommended List for next year.”

Northumberland grower uses maturity to improve logistics

Operating across a large area in Northumberland, grower John Rutherford and son’s Martin and Neil use a range of maturity scores to manage their work schedule and reduce the risk of cutting wheat into October.

The family business, based at Wooler on the north-eastern edge of the Northumberland National Park, incorporates 1,658ha of land; 1,336ha of which is combinable crops, including winter wheat, oilseed rape, winter barley, winter and spring oats and ground rented for potatoes.

Growing a mixture of milling and feed wheats, hard Group 4 Grafton (-1) is the earliest in the variety line-up, which allows both early drilling from the first week of September and early harvesting in the summer.

This is joined by mid-maturity milling varieties Skyfall (0) and Siskin (+1) and biscuit makers Zulu (+1) and Barrel (+1). Finally, late maturing variety Lilli (+3) makes up the rest of the area, harvested last and typically grown in one block.

The result is a smooth and sequential harvest, with three week spread in wheat ripening helping to keep the combines rolling. It also frees up land to get the vast quantity of muck from the farm’s beef herd spread onto stubbles and oilseed rape drilling started in good time.

“It [maturity] is a logistical tool and we want to pick off the earlier varieties as quickly as possible. It stops everything getting tight and all coming at once,” explains John.

A large part of managing the harvest of the later-maturing varieties across the business’s owned and contract-farmed land is pre-harvest glyphosate and John hopes that if used responsibly, it will remain a tool for years to come.

However, he says without it, many of the later maturing varieties would probably become extinct in the North, with earlier types having a better chance of survival.

“We get away without it with [the early maturing variety] Grafton, depending on the season.

“Although the later varieties take longer to mature and yield well, they put pressure on harvesting in September, so it’s up to the breeders to make sure they produce varieties that aren’t too late and therefore help reduce reliance on glyphosate,” adds John.

Many farmers started the season with empty silage clamps and although the silage maize harvest is likely to be much earlier than usual, farmers may be looking for other solutions to their shortage of forage. To this end we’ve formulated a new “Emergency Forage” grass mixture, which is detailed below, along with some other forage options available for sowing at this time of year.

With maize coming off early, there is ample opportunity to sow an autumn catch crop to mop up nitrogen and produce valuable fodder.

EMERGENCY FORAGE – new seeds mixture

Composition

30% Westerwolds Ryegrass Peleton (tetraploid)
40% Italian Ryegrass Meribel
30% Italian Ryegrass – Udine (tetraploid)
100%

Why Choose Emergency Forage Grass Mixture?

Its a fast growing forage capable of providing silage or grazing this autumn if sown now, as well as providing multiple cuts of silage throughout next year.

• Less risk of winter kill than straight Westerwolds ryegrass
• High tetraploid content for better forage quality
• Seed packed into 25 kg bags

BLENDED RYEGRASS

Our coveted blend of Italian Ryegrass plus some Perennial Ryegrass to put “bottom” in the sward for high yields of silage with grazing potential. Ideal to follow maize.

LUCERNE and RED CLOVER

With soil temperatures likely to be maintained later until the end of summer, why not consider the opportunity to grow a protein rich crop?

We now have natural and pre-inoculated seed of two varieties of Lucerne available. MARSHAL which is a thin stemmed variety with a high leaf to stem ratio and MEZZO, the top rated variety in France with a dormancy rating of 3.6, making it worth considering for more northerly areas previously considered unsuitable for growing Lucerne.

Another high protein option is red clover; normally sown with a companion grass such as hybrid ryegrass.

FORAGE BRASSICAS

Don’t also forget forage brassicas, useful for sowing up to end August.

• STUBBLE TURNIPS – Samson, Delilah and Rondo
• FORAGE RAPE – Rampart and Hobson
• RAPE KALE HYBRID – Interval
• FORAGE RYE – Humbolt
• BRASSICA SEED MIXTURES – Autumn Keep & Meatmaker

For more information on any of the above options, contact your usual distributor, email enquiries@limagrain.co.uk or call 01472 370105

With maize harvest looking to be at least two weeks earlier in many parts of the country he says it is important to focus on harvesting their maize in optimum conditions.

Mr Richmond says there are two main reasons why the maize harvest should be significantly earlier this year. The first is the season where, as a result of the prolonged drought, crops are generally two weeks ahead of normal.

“The hot weather means the accumulated Ontario Heat Units are already high meaning crops are maturing quickly. We have seen early tasselling and crops drying down quicker.

“The second reason is that to help reduce the problems created by the cold, wet spring, lower soil temperatures and delayed drilling, we saw a swing from later maturing varieties to earlier maturing options. Early varieties will typically mature two weeks ahead of later maturing varieties, irrespective of the season. Where a farmer switched varieties, they could be looking at harvesting four weeks earlier than last year.

“Correct timing of harvest is essential to ensure the best yield of high quality maize silage by, so I recommend walking crops from late August to assess maturity.

“The target range for an optimum crop is 32-35% dry matter as this maximises the dry matter yield and starch content while also maintaining better digestibility in the vegetative part of the plant which typically contains 50% of the energy.

“At dry matter levels higher than this, palatability and intakes can be reduced, digestibility will be compromised and the crop may prove difficult to consolidate, increasing the risk of aerobic spoilage.

“Crops typically dry down at 2% per week but this year it will be much quicker, possibly as high as 4% per week, so it is important to start measuring dry matter and assessing maturity sooner rather than later.

“Look to harvest when no juice emerges as the stem is twisted, and when the leaves level with the cob are just beginning to turn brown. The grains at the top of the cob should be like soft cheese, the ones at the bottom should be like hard cheese and the ones in the middle should be soft enough to leave the imprint of a thumbnail on. Our Maize Manager app contains all the information needed to assess crops for harvest.

“As well as regularly walking and assessing the crop, it is vital to talk to your contractor so they are aware of likely harvesting dates. By reacting to the season, you will be able to ensure the best quality forage.”

“In what has been a really challenging season to get yields like this from a variety the first time we have grown it is tremendous. It’s one of the boldest samples I have seen in a wheat since we grew Oakley back in 2008 producing a specific weight of 84.”

Mr Lamyman chose to grow LG Skyscraper for its very high yield potential and the combination of  plant characteristics offered by the variety . “It’s the highest yielding candidate in the 2018 AHDB Recommended List trials at 109% of control, so we had the right mix of good soils offering the potential to develop well-structured root systems enabling easier nutrient uptake and a high yielding variety from the start.”

The very same 8ha field in which the LG Skyscraper was grown, grew a record breaking crop of LG Stallion peas last year.

The crop was drilled on 24^th September at a seed rate of 175kg/ha into a field which is a grade 2 chalky loam, that had been pressed followed by two passes with a Lemkin Terradisc and then finished with a Vaaderstat carrier (discs and crumble roller).

Once satisfied with the seed bed, LG Skyscraper was drilled by a Vaaderstat Rapid with the coulters set at a 4 inch row width, and finally rolled.

Mr Lamyman puts down his high yields, which includes this year’s OSR record yield of 7.01t/ha, to a good foliar feed programme, which he says helps to encourage deeper rooting in the winter relieving heat stress in the summer.

“Little and often is my philosophy to meet the crop’s growing needs; a healthy well-fed crop will be better at resisting debilitating disease,” he says.

“Between sowing and mid-November the crop had 3 applications of Delta K which went on with an insecticide, a herbicide and then on its own. After that the weather closed in, and it was very cold and wet, so we didn’t do much more with the crop until the spring.”

With regards to nitrogen applications, the crop received a total of  360kg/ha  spread over several applications between February and May, he says.

“I can’t say enough how pleased I am with the way that the crop has performed in what has been a really challenging season. I will definitely be growing the variety again next year – there are always learnings to be had when growing a new variety. I say it takes four years of growing a variety to really get to know it and to grow it to its full potential.”

The UK Dairy Day event is very much one to look forward to on the Dairy calendar. Having attracted over 8000 visitors and hosting over 300 exhibitors previously, it is one of the largest and most anticipated trade events for the dairy industry.

Join the LG Seeds team on stand H120, to check out the latest in our range of leading varieties of Maize.

See Pinnacle, set to become the a class leading First Choice variety on the 2019 BSPB/NIAB list. With its excellent early vigour for rapid early season growth, good eyespot tolerance, very high starch content and improved digestible fibre, Pinnacle will produce superb quality silage.

We will also be featuring other established maize options such as Reason, Glory, Gatsby and Ambition.

Join our team of Specialists to discuss all matters Dairy, and take the opportunity to enter a great competition with lots of giveaways.

For more information on the Dairy Day Event, click here.

In the build up to the big day, why not check out Pinnacle online or all of our great range of Maize varieties in the 2018 Selection Guide.

Based on the success of last year’s yields, Mr Lamyman opted to grow the variety again as LG Stallion remains one of the highest yielding large blue peas on the PGRO Recommended List, showing a 2% yield advantage over Prophet and 9% ahead of Campus, combined with good standing.

The peas follow a second wheat in the seven year rotation which also includes wheats, spring barley and oilseed rape. “The field chosen for the crop is much like last year, a grade 2 chalky loam which offers the potential for well-structured root systems enabling easier nutrient uptake, which I believe is key to a high yielding crop,” says Mr Lamyman.

Prior to seed being drilled the field was ploughed, followed by two passes with a Lemkin Terradisc and then finished with a Vaderstad carrier (discs and crumble roller). Once satisfied with the seed bed, LG Stallion was drilled by a Vaderstad Rapid with the coulters set at a 4 inch row width.

“Drilled on 14^th April, the LG Stallion seed was treated with Wakil XL + GPA; the aim of this being to get early downy mildew control from the Wakil XL and better root development as well as plant establishment with the phosphite-based nutrient GPA. Established plant populations were 85 plants/m²”, he says.

“We learnt a lot from last year’s crop with regards to foliar applications, so these have been slightly tweaked by using XStress, as we did get some leaf scorch last year which will have had an impact on photosynthesis,”

“Last year, we did have an issue with virus in the crop, so this year we paid particular attention to that applying aphox early. We also applied an early insecticide application of Hallmark to control weevil damage.”

Peter Busfield of Dunns, was in the combine as the crop was harvested on the 7^th August. “The crop combined easily and stood well. The pods sat higher on the stems facilitating free movement of air and this helps even ripening and keep disease out. After a very dry summer, the yield, colour retention and marketability of the variety should enable it to claim its rightful place in the market.”

Dunns (Long Sutton) Ltd took an early interest in the variety, and have the crop with Tim Lamyman on a seed production contract, but with the view to make human consumption grade to aid some end-user testing, so we are thrilled with these harvest results, adds Dunns managing director, Chris Guest.

Franek Smith president of BEPA agrees. “LG Stallion has shown that it not only yields excellently, but produces top quality for human consumption and micronising markets. Tim Lamyman should be proud of the yield he has achieved this year in the light of difficult, dry conditions after a cold, wet spring.”

“Having a variety that suits both farmers and the end consumers is paramount to success, from Mr Lamyman’s sample, LG Stallion appears to fit the bill.”