The 2010 Cereal Recommended List

NORTHERN IRELAND, UK - Improved varieties and quality seed are vital for productive crop and grass production. Breeders, seed merchants and testing organisations all play a role in ensuring that farmers are provided with the most appropriate varieties for use in Northern Ireland. Recently the AFBI Crossnacreevy Plant Testing Station launched the new Cereal Recommended List for 2010.
calendar icon 21 January 2010
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Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) Crossnacreevy, with its extensive variety evaluation programmes, produces and provides relevant up-to-date information on varieties of cereals, potatoes, grass, clover and maize.

The Recommended Lists for winter barley, winter wheat, spring barley, spring oats and winter oats are based on data collected from trials conducted over five years and part-funded by the Home-Grown Cereal Authority (HGCA).

Winter cereal varieties are provisionally recommended when they have completed two years of trials in Northern Ireland and spring varieties when they have completed three years. Trials are conducted at two, three or four sites across Northern Ireland each year for spring barley, winter barley and winter wheat varieties and spring and winter oats are trialled at AFBI Crossnacreevy only. Yields are assessed with disease control and plant growth regulator (PGR) to determine potential yield in the absence of disease and lodging and without disease control and PGR to determine the risk of yield loss in the presence of disease and lodging. Information on yield and agronomic and quality characteristics are accumulated yearly and taken into consideration when deciding whether varieties become fully recommended, provisionally recommended or removed from the Lists.

Spring varieties

Growers will be beginning to consider which varieties of spring barley and spring oats to purchase seed of for spring sowing. The spring barley varieties Quench, Doyen and Westminster are fully recommended for general use. Waggon is fully recommended for special use. Concerto, Publican and Sweeney continue as provisional recommendations. There are no newcomers to the 2010 Spring Barley Recommended List.

Two new varieties on the Spring Oat Recommended List, Canyon and Rozmar, are provisionally recommended for 2010. Husky has been promoted to full recommendation for general use and Ascot and Firth continue to be fully recommended.

Winter varieties

The DARD Recommended List has details of the characteristics of current varieties and so provides useful guidance for management decisions to be taken for winter crops already in the ground. Recommendations have also been updated for sowing in autumn 2010.

The winter wheat Recommended List has been thoroughly revised. Alchemy and Robigus continue to be fully recommended for general use. Claire, Zebedee and Einstein are now outclassed. JB Diego continues into a second year of provisional recommendation. Two newcomers, Ketchum and Panorama, are provisionally recommended for the first time and Oakley has been removed from the list.

The winter barley Recommended List for 2010 has 2 row and 6 row varieties but no 6 row hybrid varieties. Suzuka and Retriever have been promoted to full recommendation, Suzuka for general use and Retriever for special use because of its weak straw. Saffron and Camion continue to be fully recommended for general use and Pearl has become outclassed. Pelican has been promoted to a full recommendation for special use as a 6 row variety. Colibri, another 6 row variety, has become outclassed.

The winter oat Recommended List for 2010 is unchanged with Tardis, Gerald and SW Dalguise being fully recommended for general use.

Full details of all varieties included in trials in 2009 are available on the AFBI website Recommended Variety Lists section (http://www.afbini.gov.uk/reclists). The 2010 Recommended Lists will be published shortly as a DARD Booklet. Further information on cereal varieties and also potato, maize, grass and clover varieties can be obtained by contacting AFBI Crossnacreevy Plant Testing Station on +44 (0)28 90 548000.

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