Yorkshire grower Peter Trickett has won a major milling wheat quality competition using the breadmaking variety Crusoe, with the variety also being grown by farmers in second and third places.

Mr Trickett harvested a yield of 11.24t/ha at a protein content of 13.2% and Hagberg of 337 to win the gold award of the Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) Milling Wheat Quality Award 2021, organised by crop consultant Adas.

See also: Lincolnshire grower sweeps up at top-yield competition

He has grown the Group 1 milling variety since 2014. Last season his YEN crop was flooded in early November by the nearby River Wharfe, but still recovered to win the award based on wheat quality, dough and baking results.

A milling wheat grower for some 20 years, he normally hits the miller’s standard specifications of 13% protein, 250 Hagberg and 76kg/hl specific weight in most years, and he says with Crusoe the key is to give it sufficient nitrogen and keep it standing.

“Crusoe is well suited to our variable soils and we saw no lodging last season,” he says.

YEN yield

His whole 28ha YEN field yielded 10.3t/ha, with the portion selected for the competition some 11.24t/ha, with the specific weight being a touch low at 75.0kg/hl.

The field was drilled on 27 September at 270 seeds/sq m at his Fortshot House Farm, Wike, in the lower Wharfe valley just north of Leeds in West Yorkshire, and then was under water by November 2.

The crop received 300kg/ha of nitrogen in four splits, a three-spray fungicide programme and the plant growth regulator chlormequat was applied three times, with bio-solids used in the rotation.

Crusoe’s susceptibility to brown rust was not a major problem, as the disease is not seen on the farm.

Second and third

Second place went to Essex grower Richard Carr, with a harvested yield of 9.89t/ha, and his grain sample gave the highest protein at 14.1% of all the 11 YEN entries and the second highest Hagberg at 369 and a good specific weight of 77.2kg/hl.

He has been growing Crusoe for 10 years in the dry climate near the Essex coast with a low annual rainfall of 450-475mm, and he puts down much of his success to his high-yielding fertile London clay soils and plenty of poultry manure.

The crop was drill on 20 October at a seed rate of 166kg/ha and given 200kg/ha of nitrogen in four splits and a four-spray fungicide programme on his farm at Lawling Hall, near Latchingdon, east of Chelmsford.

Third was Edward Vipond, farm manager at Troston Farms, just north-east of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, with a yield of 10.27t/ha on his sandy clay loams with Crusoe grown on a contract for breadmaker Warburtons.

The crop was drilled on 18 September at 325 seeds/sq m, given 285kg/ha of nitrogen in the four-way split and a three-spray fungicide programme, and his wheat sample came out at 12.4% protein, 350 Hagberg and 78.5kg/hl specific weight.

The YEN awards were announced at the AHDB Milling Wheat Conference held on 1 March