The Irish Farmers Journal understands that cuts have been made to the crop variety and evaluation programme at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

At the Irish Seed Trade Association’s open day at the Department’s variety trials at Kildalton Agricultural College, it was outlined that all trials are now limited to 18 varieties.

The malting barley trials, which were really an added extra, have also been cut. However, an extra site has been added to both the recommended list trial and one national list trial for spring barley.

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In 2025, there were 20 varieties in the recommended and national list trials for winter wheat, winter barley and spring barley. These are all moved to 18 this year.

Comprehensive

The evaluation system is still comprehensive with three main sites – Backweston, Ballyderowan and Kildalton – along with trials on 16 farms around the country.

As well as the recommended lists and national list trials, there are also observation plots which are untreated for disease, high nitrogen trials to assess lodging and BYDV trials to assess virus levels.

However, the cut to the number of varieties being tested is concerning and will hopefully not be the start of further cuts.

Services such as seed testing are already under pressure. Many in the tillage sector often describe the crop variety evaluation system as some of the best value for money spends by the Department.

Some will say there are a large number of varieties on lists such as spring barley and with small seed availability.

However, it is important that farmers have choice and varieties that suit different areas of the country.

Having a selection of varieties that are certified by the Department also reduces weed and disease risks and ensures a more consistent level of yields and quality for Irish farmers.