Cereals

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?

Suffolk farmers were invited to a roundtable event by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), where they heard the latest on available schemes and grants – and shared concerns about the level of financial support for food production versus environmental management. Sarah Kidby reports.

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.

Blackstone’s exceptionally wide sowing window from mid-September to March looks to be a major benefit to Scottish growers, with Kirkcaldy-based farmer Willie Murray seeing high average yields of 12.5t/ha after sowing the crop for the first time in September last year.

Plans for a consultation with industry over the possible introduction of a Digital Passport for Combinable Crops have been confirmed for October 2023 by the project’s Leadership Group.