High-output wheat with UK-wide appeal excites market

New winter wheat RGT Hexton looks set to fill plenty of drills next autumn thanks to its robust credentials that have underpinned strong performances in official and merchant trials.

The soft Group 4 variety, bred by RAGT Seeds, gained full UK approval on the AHDB’s 2025/26 Recommended List.

It is a very versatile, high-output wheat that suits all regions, with yield scores of 105 for the UK and 111 in the north.

RAGT’s arable technical manager Andrew Creasy describes RGT Hexton as a barn-filler with country-wide appeal.

© RAGT Seeds Ltd

“It’s not just a great feed wheat; it is also approved for distilling,” he says. “It’s a step-up from the competition and is likely to prove popular among growers supplying that market.”

The variety is the best performing second wheat on the RL, he says. “It also shines as a first wheat, can be grown on light or heavy land and can be sown from mid-September onwards.

“It is stiff-strawed and the grain has a decent specific weight.”

A further feature set to drive RGT Hexton’s uptake is its good disease resistance package.

“The variety has good scores for Septoria tritici and yellow rust resistance at 6.7 and 7 respectively, backed up by a 6 for mildew and 5 for brown rust,” says Andrew.

“Many growers will welcome this as they look to replace older varieties coming under increasing disease pressure.

“RGT Hexton is also resistant to orange wheat blossom midge, a prerequisite for the increasing number of growers turning away from insecticides.”

Demonstrating potential

Results from Agrii’s Winter Wheat National Variety Trial in 2024 clearly demonstrate RGT Hexton’s potential, says Andrew.

“Overall, the variety produced very sound results, reflecting its consistency and reliability across regions, rotation, soil type and drilling date.

“It did all the things we’d expected it to do, putting in a strong performance against controls and other varieties across the trials.”

At Carnoustie in Scotland, RGT Hexton yielded just under 12.4t/ha, the best yield in the trial. It left soft wheat control varieties like Skyscraper and Astronomer around 2.4t/ha behind.

A similar yield gap was seen at Bridgend in South Wales. Despite the site being hit hard by Septoria, RGT Hexton produced 14t/ha, well above Skyscraper’s 11.6t/ha.

At Swindon in Wiltshire the difference increased to almost 2.9t/ha.

At Revesby in Lincolnshire, RGT Hexton ended up 0.7t/ha ahead of Skyscraper on this continuous wheat site, underlining its flexibility.

On-farm experience is limited, given RGT Hexton will not be commercially launched until the autumn.

However, Andrew reports one grower in East Anglia was very pleasantly surprised by its performance as a seed crop in a difficult year.

“It yielded better than he thought it would. Despite its apparently low tiller numbers, it averaged 9.87t/ ha, which was the grower’s best yield in 2024.”

Andrew expects similar outcomes to be repeated elsewhere next season. “Overall, RGT Hexton has delivered a very strong all-round performance. It has no Achilles heel and is a consistent, versatile and reliable performer that is suitable for feed or distilling.”