Over the last 10 years, breeders have made great progress in improving 2-row feed winter barley varieties. Newer varieties offer superior yield potential with better disease resistance and good grain quality attributes – desirable characteristics recognised by all feed barley growers.
LG Caravelle leads the way in this new world, as the highest yielding 2-row winter barley to join the 2023/24 AHDB Recommended List.
Bred by Limagrain, LG Caravelle dispels any misconception that 2-row barleys are lower yielding than hybrids, as it offers UK yields of 106% – which is as high as the present top yielding hybrids. Its performance in the east (109%) is exciting, with a significantly higher yield potential than any other variety; including hybrids – where it has a 3% advantage.
More importantly, the variety has shown a high consistency of performance across both regional and seasonal data sets.
These high yields are backed up by an excellent disease profile, reflected in LG Caravelle’s high untreated yields.The variety has a good rating of 7 for mildew, which can be a difficult disease to control in winter barley, as we saw last spring. Limagrain data suggests a 7 rating for brown rust – again this disease can be the yield robber in many seasons when not effectively controlled.
The variety has a respectable 6 rating for Rhynchosporium, a 5 for Net Blotch and is BaYMV resistant.
Agronomically, LG Caravelle is shorter strawed like LG Mountain, and offers both good lodging and brackling ratings with an earlier maturity (0).
LG Caravelle also offers an exceptionally high specific weight for a winter barley, at 71.8 kg/hl; one of the best available and only surpassed by the old favourite, KWS Cassia.
Early indications from AGRII black-grass competition trials in Cambridgeshire, suggests that LG Caravelle is competitive in a black-grass situation, offering high yields and black-grass ear reduction levels similar to that of hybrids.
