Variety improvement is ongoing as measured though the continuously increasing yields achieved in the recommended list trials. This was one of the significant messages from the well-attended Irish Seed Trade Association (ISTA) seminars in recent weeks.

Clodagh Whelan showed a graph (Figure 1) which showed the continuously increasing spring barley yield trends as identified through the performance of the varieties being tested for the recommended lists.

While the actual numbers are subject to annual variability, the trend in these yield levels is clear and continuous – upwards (the red line).

Yield trends

However, the challenge of capitalising on that potential is not being met at farm level, at least not on average. While many recent studies show significant performance variability at farm and field level, the national average crop performance is not measuring up to those levels.

Speaking at the seminars, Andy Doyle suggested that the majority of our tillage land is a long way from delivering the full genetic potential of the varieties we grow today.

Looking at the average performance for winter wheat and spring barley since the record historic year of 1984, the average crop yields have only occasionally exceeded those 1984 records.

Andy suggested that this was primarily due to the fact that our tillage soils have become quite worn since the 1980s, when the residual effect of rotational grass enhanced their ability to perform back then.

Most land today lacks that punch which helps crops grow their potential yield in the critical late winter and early spring period, where potential can so easily be lost.

He emphasised the fact that high potential yield is about our only natural advantage and this can only be achieved with the help of significant investment in plant protection products, which leaves us a high-cost producer.

It is essential for our very survival that we put the power back into the ground to drive our yield advantage, which should now be in excess of 5.5t/ac for winter wheat and over 4.0t/ac for spring barley – both farm-average yields.

Putting power back into the ground is a combination of a number of different things, Andy stated. But it starts with the addition of any form of organic matter to drive biological activity which helps to restructure the soil and enable mineralisation, which then helps to maintain yield potential at critical times.

Getting your soil into better physical conditions helps reduce the horsepower and metal needed to cultivate it and widens the window of workability.

Variety progress continues

Clodagh presented information on the spring recommended lists. While the recommended varieties are now known, and are published in this week’s Irish Farmers Journal Focus, it was particularly interesting to hear about the newer varieties currently being assessed and those that are showing promise.

This is always encouraging because we need varieties with better resistance to our main diseases, because of the shrinking pool of actives available to us.

Promising varieties to watch out for include Delfin and Isabel oats. The latter, with good straw and disease resistance, looks like it will meet or possibly exceed the specific weight level of Barra, which has been king of quality for over 30 years now.

In the pipeline also are prospects such as Docker, Arderin and Prospect spring barley and Avonore and Chilham spring wheats.

Risk mitigation

Certified seed is more than just seed. It is part of an internationally controlled process which guarantees the quality and purity of what is in the bag and might be regarded as a risk mitigation measure in a market that is increasingly discerning. That was how Donal Fitzgerald of Goldcrop described the job that the ISTA is doing.

An integral part of the certification process is the ongoing effort by plant breeders and seed agents to produce and identify varieties that show superior performance in the market here.

Tim O’Donovan of Seed Technology told the meeting that the plant breeding industry has undergone massive rationalisation in an effort to utilise the very many new and sophisticated technological tools available to breeders today.

Success in plant breeding is a numbers game and it needs to either produce the maximum number of crosses annually and/or use modern technology to help identify the desirable traits much earlier in potential new varieties. This has been key to much of the progress that has been achieved through breeding in recent years.

After the plant breeder comes the national agent. In Ireland, companies such as Goldcrop, SeedTech, Germinal and Drummonds act as agents for international plant breeders and these do an initial screening of hundreds of potential new varieties.

But the majority of these do not even make it as far as official testing by the Department because they have some major weakness for the Irish climate.

That said, this same process has helped identify many successful commercial varieties which have been unique to Ireland and the pressures of our climate.

Once a variety is identified as being useful for the Irish market, seed must be produced for sale and this is managed through the certification process.

Donal said that the standards for Irish certified seed are among the highest in the world, because higher standards are used and the certification process is operated independently by the Department of Agriculture. They are judge and jury on every field and lot of seed.

The Irish certification system operates higher voluntary standards for specific grass weeds such as wild oats, sterile brome, blackgrass and canary grass. Donal said this means that if any seed crop has any of these species present prior to harvest, the crop will be rejected in the field.

Donal explained the labelling system, stating that the order of purity progresses from pre-basic to basic to C1 or first generation blue label seed. This is the main type of seed sold in Ireland and we no longer produce red label, which would be the progeny of C1 seed.

Asked about the viability of using imported red label seed, Donal said that the standards for contamination in this grade are seven times higher than blue label and this makes the voluntary standard more difficult to control.

Asked if imported red label should always be cleaned again before it would be released into the Irish market to help protect against the unintentional importation of undesirable species such as blackgrass, both Donal and Tim said that cleaning can never guarantee the removal of an unwanted seed and that is why the Irish system wants to ensure that undesirable seeds are never mixed with a seed crop in the first place.

Summing up the seminars, ISTA chair Jim Gibbons of Germinal said that it is always good advice to use certified seed to protect clean land and that it is even better advice to use Irish certified seed.