One of the most important decisions that every cereal farmer makes each year is what variety to put in the ground. Many factors come into play when it comes to selecting a variety such as yield, grain quality and disease resistance as well as things like straw quality or resistance to lodging.

In 2018 there were a number of additions and removals to the AHDB recommended list as reported by the Farmers Journal Scotland in December. Steve Hoad, team leader of agronomy, physiology and genetics with SRUC, presented his thoughts on what farmers should look out for in 2018.

Spring barley

Spring barley was down 85,000t in the 2017 harvest although newer varieties have the potential to provide extra yield this year he said. While Concerto has been the dominant variety for the last number of years, accounting for three quarters of Scottish spring malting barley intake, Hoad noted that is was beginning to be outclassed on yield.

Laureate, which has full approval for both brewing and distilling, had a 12% higher yield in trials as well as strong agronomic features, Hoad predicted that it would grow its market share this year. The three newer varities on the list, LG Diablo and Tomahawk and RGT Asteroid, also gave higher yields than Concerto and are currently under Malting Barley Committee testing for brewing and distilling (Tomahawk for distilling only).

Spring oats

On the oats front he predicted that Firth, Canyon and Conway would all remain market leaders due to their preferred milling qualities but that the new variety, Delfin, had a high yield potential. He also suggested that farmers consider Yukon or WPB Elyann due to their comparatively high yields.

Winter wheat and barley

For winter wheat the message was that there is plenty of choice when it comes to distilling varieties. This year another two varieties, KWS Jackal and Elation, have been added in addition to LG Motown and Sundance that were added in 2017.

For winter barley the growing trend seems to be that six-row varieties are beginning to outclass two-row varieties. KWS Orwell, Cassia amd Creswell are the highest yielding two-row varieties and three new six-row varieties have been added, hybrids Belmont and Libra and conventional KWS Astaire.