Risk management key in challenging season

Genetically diverse varieties can help spread risk when growing milling wheat in a challenging season, say experts.

For many cereal growers, 2024 will be remembered for all the wrong reasons: persistent wet weather, a poor spring, lack of sunshine, huge disease pressure and a huge battle against brown and yellow rust.

Following widespread septoria in 2023, the past two years are a stark reminder for growers to spread their risk by selecting varieties with different parentage, says Andrew Bourne, seed manager for seed merchant T Denne and Sons.

Some 47% of the total certified winter wheat seed sold last autumn was covered by just three varieties, he adds. “We’ve a lot of growers, with too many eggs in too fewer baskets – not looking at genetic diversity to spread their risk.”

In high pressure disease situations, when yields can easily be compromised, genetically diverse Group 2 milling wheat varieties such as Mayflower from Elsoms should be a strong choice for growers, says Mr Bourne.

Mayflower’s genetic make-up, from French parentage, is radically different to other milling wheats on the current recommended list (RL). “With its flexibility on input timings, it’s a lower risk variety for growers.”

Risk management

“We’ve been working with Mayflower for three years now. Although it’s not – and never has been – the highest yielding milling wheat, its disease credentials, including an 8.9 for Septoria tritici and a 9 for yellow rust, have been unfairly overlooked.”

West Kent farmer Will Thompson, of the Brattle Farm Partnership, primarily grows milling wheats. He agrees on the need for more growers to widen their varietal choice for better risk management.

“We first spotted Mayflower in trials in 2022 a few months before it went onto the RL. We liked its early drilling flexibility, it looked very clean – supported by some impressive disease resistance scores and had a relatively good specific weight.”

Mr Thompson drilled 130ha of Mayflower as a first wheat in the last week of September that year. It established well in predominantly heavy clay soil, showing decent early vigour, he says.

High pressure

“Despite its robust profile, we took a belt and braces approach on inputs and were rewarded with a crop that remained noticeably cleaner through a high pressure septoria season than both our other key wheats: Dawsum and Skyfall.”

The final yield for Mayflower last autumn was just under 10t/ha, not noticeably different to Skyfall. But Mr Thompson says Mayflower also achieved 13.1% protein a Hagberg falling number of 420 – one of the highest he’s grown.

Mr Thompson increased his Mayflower area to 160ha last autumn. Its stronger disease profile during a stop-start spring with delays on key spray timings. “Once again, it’s been our cleanest crop this season and looks set to perform well at harvest.”

Zantra agronomist Stan Harrison has worked with Mr Thompson for five years. He  supports the argument for better risk management in varietal choice and has monitored Mayflower’s progress closely over the last two seasons.

‘No argument’

“Having walked the crop many times there’s really no argument in confirming it has been the stand-out variety in terms of both green leaf retention and its ability to stay clean during what have been two very challenging seasons.

“This spring was tough with wet and windy conditions making it almost impossible to spray when we wanted. Mayflower’s disease resistance and flexibility on input timings really came to the fore. It’s a very forgiving variety.”

After Mayflower’s performance in 2022/23, Mr Harrison relied on a four-spray fungicide programme at three week intervals. The only exception was the main flag leaf spray on 30 May of Apaveq + Splendid (fenpicoxamid + prothioconazole + tebuconazole).

“After applying the T3 spray on 19 June, I walked the Mayflower again. Despite a challenging season for brown rust, the crop still had three very clean leaves – twice as many as the other winter wheat crops.”

If high pressure years and extreme weather become the new normal, mitigating risk by choosing disease resistant, robust varieties could buy growers a few days if difficult weather conditions prevent or delay a spray, says Mr Thompson.