Varieties featured strongly at this event and there were a big number of really excellent winter wheats on view.

The big plots looked absolutely fantastic, regardless of the specific variety, and were clean to the ground. There was no septoria but there was some mildew in varieties like Lion and Avatar. These plots were what winter wheat should look like in a fresh field.

Barry Murray of Goldcrop warned of the need for vigilance on flea beetle control following the recent temporary banning of neonicotinoid insecticides on oilseed rape. Flea beetle could be a serious problem, especially on early sown winter rape. These little critters eat holes in the cotyledenous leaves and can kill the seedlings.

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Cruiser has been used to provide this control as a seed dressing in recent years. This will mean having to spray crops as they emerge in future, with either cypermethrin or Karate.

John Dunne of Goldcrop talked about the winter wheat varieties and about Avatar (Lion cross) and Lumos (Cordiale cross) in particular.

John said that Lumos has milling potential, suits earlier sowing, has better disease resistance than its parent, Cordiale, and has better yield, good hagberg and earlier ripening.

Avatar was described as a good all-rounder with good straw despite being tallish, has similar septoria resistance to JB Diego and can be sown early.