The past few weeks have seen many open days focus mainly on varieties, while Teagasc’s Crops & Spreaders threw open the full gambit of current crop research. Varieties were centre stage at Goldcrop and at the Department’s trial site at Backweston. These are all useful events to display both current varieties and those close to commercial availability.

Last week the Irish Seed Trade Association held its annual outing at Backweston. This is one of the sites for the recommended list trials for most crops. The recommended list trials are hugely important for Irish growers as they provide robust, well-proven varieties that have proven suitability in our conditions.

Varieties that are in their third year in recommended list trials are eligible for recommendation and called candidate varieties

Most will know that our recommended lists are based on replicated trials for a minimum of three years across a number of locations. Only those that perform equal to or better than the average of a set of controls will be recommended and this helps ensure continuous improvement.

Varieties that are in their third year in recommended list trials are eligible for recommendation and called candidate varieties. While there is a major focus on variety performance in terms of relative yield, straw quality and resistance to diseases, the Department has been extending this remit somewhat in recent years to look at other characteristics which are important to growers, such as suitability for early autumn drilling and susceptibility to BYDV.

New barleys are mainly winter

There is only one candidate variety being considered for the spring barley recommended list – Flyer. This has done well in the past two years and performed relatively better in the dry year in 2018. It is a feed variety with Shada in its parentage. But there is a question mark over its straw quality.

It is also worth noting that a number of the recently recommended varieties may end up with lower resistance ratings for diseases such as rhyncho and net blotch following significant disease pressure in 2019.

There is more potential for change on the 2020 winter barley recommended list, with six candidate varieties up for recommendation. These include four two-row varieties, KWS Carneval, LG Casting, Valerie and NOS 911.015-60, plus one conventional six-row KWS Orbit and one hybrid six-row, Libra.

Valerie seems to have very good specific weight and a yield edge but it is poor on ramularia

Of these there are no standout performers. Carneval may not have the additional yield potential to pull it through and the same could be said of NOS 911.015-60. However, the latter does seem to offer something extra on ramularia. Valerie seems to have very good specific weight and a yield edge but it is poor on ramularia. LG Casting may have slightly better yield and there is a small amount of seed availability. Of the six-rows, Libra has exceptionally good quality while KWS Orbit seems similar on yield but it is poor on ramularia.

Winter and spring wheats

There are four winter wheat candidates, two of which are already being grown – Graham and Cellule. Password and KWS Scimitar are the other two. Of the four, Graham and Scimitar seem the most promising, both being reasonably clean, with above average yield. Password looks to be good on disease but its straw strength needs evaluation. Cellule is the awned very early developer but it seems to have collapsed on septoria in the south. There will be seed of Graham and Cellule available.

On spring wheat there are five candidates – KWS Talisker, KWS Hexham, Kapitol, Pexeso and KWS Starlight. There will be seed of Talisker and Starlight available. Both have high yield potential but variable disease resistance. It seems likely that these two may be provisionally recommended as Doubleshot is no longer being multiplied.

A few oats too

The single candidate for the winter oat list – WPB Isabel – has been making waves for the past year or two on the spring list due to its very high grain quality. It is not as high yielding as Husky but its grain quality is said to be even better than Barra. It is relatively tall and appears, to my eye, to be somewhat less affected by BYDV.

There are two candidate varieties for the spring oat list, Elison and Albi but there is no seed available for these so they are unlikely to be recommended this coming year.

Heritage varieties

A few weeks ago the Irish Tillage and Land Use Society featured a number of heritage varieties at a farm visit. Some of those varieties are being maintained and propagated at Backweston.

Old names like Emma, Sprat Archer, Beorna, Hunter and others were on view and are being multiplied up with the intention of using them to produce limited amounts of heritage craft beers and spirits.

Cara Mac Aodháin explained the challenges involved and the great difficulty in keeping small stored seed stocks viable for many years. These old varieties looked much more sparse than modern crops and many had already lodged to stand up again by bending at the first or second node.