The winter wheat and oat recommended lists were published by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine earlier this week.

The wheat list sees KWS Dawsum added, with KWS Conros discontinued. The major change on the winter oat list is the absence of Barra, which has been on the list since 1986.

Overall yield rankings are virtually the same as last year except that Torp is up from 101 to 103. Dawsum comes in just under Graham, with Costello and JB Diego as the two lower yielding but still good varieties.

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Dawsum brings good straw and very good mildew, yellow rust and sprouting resistance as well as excellent grain quality. Individual variety characteristics are shown in Table 1.

  • Costello: moderately early maturing with good straw. Very good resistance to mildew, yellow rust and sprouting and good resistance to ear blight. Susceptible to septoria tritici. Excellent hectolitre or specific weight.
  • Graham: very high-yielding and early maturing. It has good resistance to lodging but is moderately susceptible to straw breakdown. It has very good resistance to mildew but is somewhat weaker on other diseases, especially ear blight. Moderately resistant to sprouting.
  • JB Diego: a well-known package that has been a banker across all planting and rotational positions for many years. It has moderate resistance to lodging and good resistance to straw breakdown. It is now susceptible to septoria and yellow rust but it has good resistance to sprouting. It is moderately resistant to mildew and ear blight.
  • KWS Dawsum: a moderately early maturing variety with good straw. Very good resistance to mildew, yellow rust and sprouting but it is moderately susceptible to septoria. It has relatively low thousand grain weight but very good specific weight. It is a KWS Kerrin x Costello cross and handled by Goldcrop.
  • Spearhead: very high-yielding and moderately early maturing. Moderate resistance to lodging and straw breakdown. Seen as susceptible to sprouting. Very good on mildew, good on yellow rust but moderately susceptible to septoria. On the lower side for specific weight.
  • SY Insitor: a very solid variety in terms of its package of characteristics but it is regarded as susceptible to sprouting and moderately susceptible to septoria. Good on mildew and yellow rust.
  • Torp: up two points on yield this year. It has quite good straw but is moderately late maturing. It remains moderately resistant to septoria but is weaker on all other diseases. Grain quality is only moderate.

    • Barra departs

    After over three and a half decades of service, Barra is no longer on the winter oat recommended list. It had been outclassed on yield for some time now but is has only recently been surpassed on grain quality. Its absence means that only two varieties are recommended for 2023 (both spring types) and details are shown in Table 2.

    The varieties

  • Husky: early maturing with good resistance to lodging but it is moderate susceptibility to straw breakdown. Moderately susceptible to mildew and susceptible to crown rust. Very good grain quality.
  • WPB Isabel: moderately late maturing with good straw. Moderately susceptible to mildew and crown rust with very good grain quality.

  • KWS Dawsum is added to the winter wheat recommended list while KWS Conros is discontinued.
  • Barry has been removed form the winter oat recommended list, leaving just Husky and WPB Isabel.
  • Bordeaux and SY Armadillo have been added to the winter barley list while KWS Kosmos, Pixel and Valerie have been discontinued.