RGT Pixxon – gaining a reputation for resilience
Promoted to the Descriptive List in 2022, RGT Pixxon is a best seller for Nottinghamshire-based G Williams & Co Seeds.
Commercial seeds manager Andrew Hill says the variety fits well on the region’s sandland rotations, where root and vegetable crops dominate.
Key strengths
“RGT Pixxon’s key strengths are its early maturity, good stay-green ability and very good cob retention. It also has good vigour – it gets up and away well, so can be drilled in the early-to-medium sowing window and will be ready early too.
“However, it stays in good shape and can be harvested throughout the campaign, which is quite important for the biogas market as the AD plants don’t want all the maize at once.”
The variety has good starch yields, high ME levels and very high cell wall digestibility, he adds. “Figures from one dairy farmer showed starch levels of 35.2-35.4% dry matter, and starch digestibility of 78-80%, which is very high. These numbers are really good and, not surprisingly, the farmer was very impressed.”
This is the third year that G Williams has been selling RGT Pixxon as a dual-purpose variety for biogas and forage, says Andrew. “It’s the variety that most of our growers return to, whereas other varieties are being changed.
“We tested it in 2021 with a few growers. They liked it so we pushed it harder, but it hasn’t needed much promoting since then – they are quite happy to keep going with it, and most that have used it will be doing so again this season, and we’ll be putting it in to the variety mix for others to try.
“It appears to be a resilient, consistent variety, which counts for a lot.”
Strong trials performance
Across three years of breeders’ own screening trials in the west and south of England, RGT Pixxon produced a high average dry matter yields of 19.55t/ha, around 1t/ha better than controls. Starch levels were almost 2% higher. The variety has continued to perform well, achieving similar results in official trials.
Camille Florin, RAGT’s commercial development agronomist, says: “RGT Pixxon produces well-filled, uniform cobs and has high digestibility scores. Like other RAGT stablemates, it has excellent lodging resistance that protects yield and quality potential and keeps harvest running smoothly.
Farmer friendly
“RGT Pixxon variety has scored very well in our own and official trials in the UK and in Europe, and looks very good in the field,” she adds. “It’s building a reputation as a farmer-friendly variety, with very good disease resistance, including against eyespot.”
RGT Pixxon’s excellent digestibility scores, some of the highest on the list, help improve the efficiency of biogas production (see graph).
“In RAGT trials at seven locations across Europe in 2022, the variety’s average biogas yield outstripped three other well-known varieties,” says Camille.
“Given all these results, along with the variety’s performance in the field, it’s clear that RGT Pixxon is well worth serious consideration, whether you are growing for biogas or forage.”
RGT Pixxon
- Early maturing (FAO 180)
- Very good cob presentation and retention
- Very good standing power
- Good early vigour
- Exceptional disease resistance including eyespot, fusarium and smut
- Good cell wall digestibility and ME
- Suitable for marginal later sowing or earlier harvesting
- Efficient biogas production
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