Cereals News

The grain market is now turning its attention to production prospects for 2024/25, while lower fertiliser prices create a buying opportunity for growers requiring product for spring applications.

Pete Olds and his father, Len, grow 300 acres of combinable crops and run an arable contracting business at Cornhill Farm in Cornwall. With their grain processing plant struggling to cope with handling up to 4,000t of wheat and barley each year, the Olds worked with McArthur BDC to install an upgraded plant in time for harvest 2023.

Arable farmers facing late-planted and stunted winter wheat crops after the waterlogged start to the season may need to readjust certain aspects of how these are managed compared with crops in a more normal season, says Syngenta UK head of technical, David King – including disease management.

Two, new milestone winter cereal varieties from breeder Syngenta have been added to the latest AHDB Recommended Lists (RLs) for 2024-25 – one winter wheat and one winter barley.

For the second year running, plant breeder Limagrain’s winter wheat LG Beowulf and winter barley LG Caravelle, are the highest yielding varieties to join the 2024/25 AHDB Recommended List.

AHDB has launched the online edition of the Recommended Lists for cereals and oilseeds (RL) 2024/25, which is “leaner and meaner” than previous years.

With so much land being taken out of commercial cereal productions, when there is a call to feed the nation, what changes could you make, over what timelines, and at what cost?

Woburn Farms has invested in a future-proofed grain processing plant, which allows them to grow a much larger percentage of high-quality crops with the associated premiums.

Numbers of aphid vectors that transmit barley yellow dwarf virus are significantly higher than this time last year and are building rapidly, increasing the chances of an epidemic of the disease if mild weather continues.

With only a few weeks to go before the announcement of the new Recommended List (RL), new Group 3 Soft wheat Candidate variety Bamford continues to generate very high levels of interest from across the UK seed sector.

Late drilling of winter wheat has become an increasingly common practice across UK arable farms for controlling black-grass, for second wheats and crops that are being sown after sugar beet and potatoes, and requires careful management to ensure maximum yields can be met.

Crop analyses carried out by Limagrain UK indicate that most stands of maize are on track to produce a promising crop, with the majority predicted to be ready for harvest in the next week to 10 days.