David Bouch, Hutchinsons national seeds manager gives his views on spring cropping variety choices.

Considering cereals for spring of 2025, spring barley still offers the best option for rotational suppression of grass weeds such as blackgrass, ryegrass and brome, whereas spring wheat will not offer the same level of competitiveness in the field.

With regards to spring barley choices, Laureate remains the undoubted number one in the marketplace, outselling its competitors whilst offering dual purpose end markets, as does LG Diablo but not as widely grown. RGT Planet will slip further as the newer options gain a greater share of the market. However, it will still have support from growers who have seen very consistent performance over the years.

Skyway offers brewing ability and is fully approved, as is now SY Tennyson which is more akin to Laureate with its dual-purpose credentials. Several varieties are under test for malting quality, these include LG Aquarius, Nos Gambit, Belter, Nos Munron and Olsen.

Feed varieties Westminster and Kelim, still sell well for this market, but arguably the malting varieties offer better yield.

In the spring wheat sector, Mulika, KWS Harsum and KWS Ladum are the Group 1 offer, with the former, now under significant yield disadvantage. KWS Ladum has no major disease weaknesses, with high resistance to mildew, brown rust and Septoria tritici. It will be a major consideration for next spring. KWS Harsum has OWBM resistance.

KWS Cochise and to a lesser extent KWS Chilham provide alternatives in the group 2 sector, which is little changed. KWS Alicium has the best yield.

WPB Escape has the largest market share with KWS Fixum since its arrival within the sector. It is a relatively late-maturing variety, which will be a limitation to some. Again, it appears that KWS Fixum has no major disease weaknesses, with high resistance to yellow rust, mildew and brown rust. SEW19-3003SW (proposed name ‘Everlong’) being highest yielding at 107 – Group 4.

Spring Oat WPB Isabel is the market leader with Melrin making significant headway. Canyon still has support within the marketplace. Essentially the key to growing spring oats is rainfall in June and timeliness of harvest. Conway is an early maturing option. Asterion newly added to the Recommended List last autumn, has high untreated yields with good resistance to Mildew. The end market will dictate the preferred variety in almost all the spring quality cereals.

Pulses

Spring Beans will again be dominated by Lynx.  Genius remains the highest yielding option on the descriptive list. Yukon has the best mildew resistance and is the earliest maturing. New options for this spring include Navara and LG Hawk, but neither compete with Genius for pure yield.

Synergy is a new low-vicine and low-convicine variety (LVC) and is higher yielding than the other two LVC varieties, Futura and Victus.

As far as peas are concerned, it will be Concerto (115%) and Batist (113%), which are the new top-yielding yellow peas. Carrington remains the top yielding blue pea. Bluetime will again be popular, and Butterfly is new and again showing the strength in depth of the LSPB portfolio. Kameleon from Senova and LSPB’s Orchestra are the standout white peas, however availability is key.

A new pink pea category has been created for the Descriptive List to accommodate the new variety Flamingo from Cope Seeds & Grain. In trials, it was the lowest-yielding pea listed (78%), with specific end markets from uses for human consumption, to bird and pet feed.

Vision is the new addition to the list for Marrowfats with the best downy mildew rating of 7 and with the highest yield in the sector, whilst Sakura has shown its consistency and support from the end user. The yield gap is circa 10%, but again as with anything that involves a quality premium, will be decided by the end user.

The overriding part of this summary is that key varieties will sell out, although as it stands the market itself probably will not.

If you would like advice on spring cropping choice and seed supply, please speak to your agronomist or contact our dedicated seed team: seed.orders@hlhltd.co.uk

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