After a testing season and difficult harvest, growers are sticking to a narrow range of varieties for the new cropping year. Farmers Weekly finds out what’s filling the drills.

See also: Why wheat drill dates should be delayed this autumn

Winter wheat

Just three winter wheat varieties make up a sizeable proportion of this year’s seed sales as growers look for disease resistance and resilience, reports the seed trade.

Extase, Champion and Dawsum have all been in demand for autumn 2023 drillings, thanks to their 9-10% yield differential and lower risk profile over the Group 1 milling varieties.

While all three had their standing challenges this year, feed wheat growers seem to have shunned many of the other choices on the AHDB Recommended List (RL), report commentators.

Concentrating their minds has been a high septoria pressure year, which along with early fertiliser applications and poor plant growth regulator timing, created difficulties where varieties were drilled in mid-September.

At the time of writing, Dawsum and Extase were vying for top spot. Champion comes some way behind them in terms of market share – with other well-established varieties such as Skyfall, Crusoe, Gleam and Graham continuing to sell.

The non-RL option Grouse, with its barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) resistance, is seen as the start of things to come from a promising pipeline by experts.

A prospect for high BYDV pressure areas, limited seed supply came just in time for the Sustainable Farming Incentive’s (SFI’s) £45/ha no insecticide payment.

“Dawsum and Champion came along last year and had very successful introductions,” says Hutchinsons national seeds manager David Bouch.

“We have seen lodging in them this year, so their place has been questioned – but they’ve also yielded very well.”

Extase has maintained its position as the highest yielding Group 2 and had 15% market share going into harvest, he adds.

“If you got on well with it, there’s no obvious reason to change. We know more about how to grow it than we do the others.”

Frontier Agriculture’s Jim Knight says Champion has been the cleanest variety by far, reflecting its septoria score of 8.1.

He notes that over half of Frontier’s wheat seed orders are for either Champion, Dawsum or Extase.

“We have been surprised by the amount of lodging in all of them – especially in Dawsum – but we now know that it needs attention to detail and an understanding of optimum drilling date.”

At Agrii, Rodger Shirreff reports that five varieties make up more than half of the company’s seed sales, but points out that there is still some way to go for the wheat market.

Extase and Dawsum are Agrii’s front runners, followed by Skyfall, Crusoe and Champion. “We’ve sold 41 varieties of winter wheat but these five represent over half of our sales,” he says.

Commentators agree that high-yielding soft feed newcomer Redwald will find a place in the market, providing growers recognise the best rotational position and management programme for it.

Milling wheat seed sales

The decline in Group 1 plantings last year has stabilised, reports Jim Knight, who expects Group 1s to be 15% of Frontier’s order book.

Crusoe will be the mainstay, he predicts, for its better quality and nitrogen conversion, as well as miller acceptance.

Skyfall accounts for 9.5% of Agrii’s sales ahead of this autumn, notes Rodger Shirreff, who says that the variety performed well in a tricky season and that milling premiums remain high.

Crusoe sales are up, he adds, reflecting end market demand and the variety’s consistent results.

Winter barley

Six-row hybrids – which account for 25-30% of the winter barley seed market – had a good year in 2023 but are increasingly being challenged by the conventional two-rows with their yield and specific weight combination, together with lower seed cost.

Seed of both the dominant variety Tardis and newcomer Caravelle has sold very well, reports Rodger, with just two varieties making up almost 60% of Agrii’s sales.

Malting choice Craft and two-row feed Bolton also have a loyal following, as does an Agrii exclusive feed variety called Memento. As with wheat, just five varieties make up most of its seed sales, he confirms.

Kingsbarn is the best-selling hybrid, he adds.

Other retailers report a similar picture, mentioning Tardis and Caravelle. “Seed of the two-row candidate Capitol has also sold well,” reveals David Bouch.

“It offers similar yields to Caravelle. They outperform the hybrids in the east of the country.”

Tardis is the top-seller for Frontier, confirms Jim Knight, with Kingsbarn leading the hybrid sales.

New genetics in the form of BYDV tolerance can be found in two hybrids – Buzzard and Harrier – seed of which is very limited this autumn, he notes.

“Understandably there’s a good level of interest in these, coming along just as SFI 2023 is due to open,” he says.

“There’s also the six-row conventional Feeris with the same tolerance, which can be grown to manage risk.”