Though growers couldn’t enjoy a walk around the latest varieties at this year’s Cereals, the virtual take on the event meant they could still keep up to date with the latest developments from seed houses. CPM picks out some of the key launches.
It’s still all about focusing on high yields and quality.
By Charlotte Cunningham
In the absence of the usual physical crop plots, breeders and seed houses had to get creative at this year’s Cereals Event – including a rather impressive 360-degree field tour from KWS.
However, the lack of in-the-field presence didn’t stem progression in the seed world, with plenty of new varieties in the pipeline to extend the options for cereals and oilseed growers.
CPM joined some of the virtual tours and launches at the event.
Senova
The new kids on the block in the Senova stable are Swallow and Banquo – two candidate Group 4 winter wheats that have been bred by John Blackman of Blackman Agriculture. “Swallow is a soft Group 4 winter wheat which has excellent potential for distilling and is the best of the candidates for alcohol yield,” says John. “Drawing traits from its KWS Gator/Cougar parentage, Swallow is a short and stiff variety which has given its highest yields in the north.”
While John believes it’s a no-brainer for Scotland, he also reckons Swallow has a characteristic that will make it of interest to growers further south. “Its septoria resistance is outstanding. Last year’s trials didn’t allow this to be expressed, as they were dominated by rust. In a different year, it would have been obvious.”
The variety is also likely to entice potential growers due to its OWBM resistance, he adds.
Senova’s hard Group 4 candidate – Banquo – is also showing some promising results and currently boasts the joint highest yield on the Candidate List. “It’s like Santiago in terms of consistency and reliability, but it has better disease resistance and early maturity,” says John. “That means it won’t be difficult to keep clean. Not surprisingly, with Santiago as a parent, it also tillers profusely and is suitable for early sowing.”
In the pipeline on the barley side of things, Senova also has three candidate feed barley varieties currently in testing: Bordeaux, Pixie and Paloma.
“Bordeaux is the highest yielding conventional two-row candidate on 108,” explains Jeremy Taylor, commercial director at Senova. “Bringing hybrid type yields to the conventional line-up, it also has good grain quality with a specific weight above the all-important 70kg/hl benchmark.
“Pixie is a short and stiff variety from the breeder responsible for Valerie. Again, an impressive specific weight is on offer, along with a good agronomic package and a yield of 106. Paloma is also a feed variety with good all-round attributes but not yet National Listed.”
KWS
KWS used the event to offer a preview of its Sowing for Peak Performance (SPP) initiative, as well as launching a new Hard Group 4 winter wheat variety and its latest 2-row winter barley.
“Our SPP initiative aligns KWS breeding objectives firmly with the future needs of growers, whether these come from ongoing agrochemical revocation, the need to reduce carbon footprint or to improve soil structure,” says the KWS’ UK country manager, Will Compson.
“It’s still about focusing on high yields and quality – plus the fundamental role of variety choice in delivering these in individual situations – but SPP also puts the emphasis on building in more functional traits that can help growers meet the challenges of the future more easily.” (There’s a full explanation of SPP in CPM June issue, p28).
On the variety front, its two new varieties, KWS Cranium winter wheat (KWS W360) and KWS Tardis (KWS B134) winter barley, are good examples of SPP in action – with some important characteristics being introduced alongside outright yield, adds Will.
“As the highest yielding wheat candidate for harvest 2020, KWS Cranium is a hard Group 4 mainstream-sower with an early developing vigorous growth habit.
“It gets away early in the spring with a fast speed of development and good ground cover allowing it to compete against weeds while creating a good plant stand.
“KWS Cranium has good second wheat performance along with good overall agronomic strengths including resistance to OWMB and, being a later maturing type (+2), it’s useful on-farm to spread the workload at harvest.
“It also has a reliable grain package including a good HFN (225) and specific weight (75.6kg/hl).”
The company’s new 2-row barley KWS Tardis also benefits from high yield and robust disease package, notes Will.
“The variety performs especially well in the East where it was the highest yielding winter barley in harvest 2019 trials and has an excellent disease rating for rhynchosporium and net blotch, as well as short stiff straw.”
DSV
A new high yielding, early maturing winter barley variety and a top-performing OSR were the focus for DSV at this year’s CerealsLIVE.
DSV Sensation winter barley has consistently out-yielded other BYDV resistant varieties across European trials, while being the earliest heading variety tested, says the company’s Sarah Hawthorne.
“Sensation is the world’s first winter barley variety combining tolerance to BYDV and resistance to BYMV strains 1 and 2, which is a real achievement of plant breeding and will be of benefit to growers as such diseases take a greater hold in the UK.
“Recent revocation of many insecticides and growing resistance in the aphid vector population to the remaining chemistry we have at our disposal is meaning transmission of such viruses is increasingly difficult to control.
“Like with TuYV in oilseed rape, many entomologists and agronomists are very concerned about a significant rise in BYDV in the future and genetic tolerance is about the only effective way to control this.”
Sensation is now starting its journey through the UK testing system with limited amounts available for drilling in autumn 2020.
On the OSR front, DSV’s latest high yielding candidate variety, Voltage, was in the spotlight. A full review of the variety can be found in last month’s CPM, or online at www.cpm-magazine.co.uk
App updates
On the digital side of things, updated versions of two of Syngenta’s apps were announced at this year’s Cereals Event.
- Hybrid Barley Calculator
With hybrid barley an increasingly popular crop, the app – which was initially launched two years ago – is designed to help UK winter barley growers gain greater insight into the potential return on investment from growing a hybrid.
The latest updates include a new, more user-friendly interface which also now allows growers to factor in the sale of straw based on new hybrid trial data. As well as this, users will now be able to adjust for the cost of seed.
- BYDV Assist
As winter cereal growers are no longer able to use a neonicotinoid seed treatment, Syngenta’s BYDV app is designed to help boost the timeliness of aphicide spraying against barley yellow dwarf virus. With the potential for growers to want to drill early, after being caught out by the wet start to last season, it could be particularly relevant this autumn.
Among the new updates is improved record-keeping functionality and better access to spraying alerts across different devices, as well as a simpler, more user-friendly interface.
New “barn-buster” from Syngenta
Prior to Cereals, Syngenta also announced its latest high yielding winter wheat variety that’s being launched for this autumn.
SY Insitor, from Syngenta, has the highest UK treated yield figure of all 11 hard Group 4 winter feed wheat varieties on the AHDB Recommended List for 2020/21, according to Tracy Creasy, Syngenta marketing manager for conventional cereals – yielding equivalent to 11.76 t/ha.
As well as its “barn-busting” yield, Syngenta believes this new offering could help growers respond to a number of present-day disease, weed and pest challenges, she adds. “SY Insitor combines its high yield with a robust resistance rating of 6.6 against the major disease, septoria. Plus, it has achieved exceptionally high yields without being drilled early.
“All these features make SY Insitor an ideal fit as growers prepare themselves for dealing with septoria and other modern-day challenges such as blackgrass and BYDV.”
