Harvest Highlights from our LG Legends Demo Farmers
Harvest 2026 has provided another opportunity to see how LG varieties perform under real farming conditions. We caught up with LG Legend growers Ryan McCormack in Suffolk and Rob Atkin in Staffordshire, to hear how their crops performed through this testing season and any key lessons learnt from harvest.
Meet the growers
Dennington Hall Farms in Suffolk is a 1,600ha combinable crops and sugar beet operation. This season, the farm grew around 15 different varieties across all crops, plus several blends.
Located just outside Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, Rob Atkin manages Field Hall, a 1,000-acre farm with a focus on arable cropping and grass-fed, home-reared cattle. Rob grows a wide range of varieties tailored to different roles in the rotation.
Winter barley
Winter barley delivered some of the standout results from Harvest 2026 for the two growers. At Dennington Hall Farms, all LG varieties exceeded 10 t/ha. LG Carpenter topped the yields at 11.71 t/ha, while LG Capitol impressed with 11.39 t/ha and the highest specific weight of 68.1 kg/hl.
LG Carpenter was the top performing winter barley variety for Ryan.
Looking at results beyond yield, LG Carpenter stood out for its speed of emergence and grain quality, with Ryan describing it as having “a lovely looking big ear” and adding that “it was the best-looking variety by eye, plus the tallest.”
For Rob Atkin at Field Hall, after comparing all of his LG Winter barleys grown in a demonstration scenario, it was his LG Catapult that stood out most, achieving the highest grain yield of 8.27 t/ha, with a specific weight of 69 kg/hl. His LG Caravelle demo proved why it has been the commercial choice on farm, coming in with the second highest yield of 7.6 t/ha, with a very good specific weight of 70 kg/hl.
Rob also grew LG Caravelle commercially on two different fields. Both crops were cultivated and drilled into heavy clay soils as second cereals, with a tine drill on the 23rd of September. The land was extremely waterlogged throughout the winter and early spring, which then inevitably delayed spring development and tillering.
Even in these challenging conditions, the variety performed – the highest yielding field still achieved 6.7 t/ha, in line with the farm average of 6.7 to 7.4 t/ha.
Oilseed rape
Despite the testing late spring and early summer, oilseed rape was one of the crops that performed very well across the country, and the results from the two farms reflected this. In Suffolk, Dennington’s tramline trial saw Magelan deliver the highest yield at 5.90 t/ha, followed by LG Adapt (5.24 t/ha) and LG Academic (4.85 t/ha).
LG Academic was the highest-yielding oilseed rape variety for Rob Atkin.
Further west in Staffordshire, Rob Atkin’s plot trial recorded LG Academic as the highest-yielding variety at 5.92 t/ha, closely followed by LG Adapt (5.61 t/ha) and LG Armada and LG Adeline, both with a yield of 5.58 t/ha.
Commercial crop performance reinforced the value of LG genetics, with LG Avenger delivering competitive yields and strong returns in both farming systems.
Whilst the actual highest-yielding variety differed between locations, LG Academic and LG Adapt featured among the strongest performers at both sites, demonstrating dependable performance across contrasting farming systems.
Winter wheat
Winter wheat demonstrated strong performance despite a season marked by prolonged dryness in the spring, temperatures reaching 37.5°C and limited rainfall. At Dennington, LG Defiance delivered yields of up to 13.9 t/ha in direct-drilled large demonstration strips.
A commercially grown crop of LG Lotus achieved yields of 10.23 t/ha with 180 kg N/ha for Ryan, while the commercial crop of LG Defiance produced 8.67 t/ha with only 166 kg N/ha.
Over at Atkin Farms, LG Rebellion delivered yields exceeding 9 t/ha from 190 kg N, plus sulphur.
Key takeaways for 2027
• In a challenging season, profitability, input efficiency and resilience proved just as important as outright yield.
• Strong performance isn’t just about the highest yield. Grain quality, harvestability and consistency all contributed to crop value this season.
• LG varieties delivered competitive results across different regions, rotations and growing conditions.
