Yorks farmer quadruples area of RGT Grouse

The BYDV-resistant hard feed variety outperformed Gleam in a head-to-head large- scale field comparison and stood toe-to-toe with Dawsum in another. This, together with its strong showing elsewhere on the farm, means Grouse has secured a 160ha slice of the first wheat area this coming season.

The wheats in the comparison were drilled on 10-12 September after oilseed rape. Grouse was slower to get away, but caught up.

“We had about 4 acres of each variety in the trials,” says Stephen. “Grouse came out 0.5t/acre better than Gleam.”

He estimates the variety yielded about 10t/ha, although the trials were sited in the body of the field so no headlands were included.

“That was similar to the other 24ha of Grouse we’ve cut so far,” he adds. “Grouse also had a better bushel weight than Gleam and a lot more straw, which is important as we use a lot in our livestock enterprises and sell the rest to the Brigg biomass power plant. We still have about 25% of Grouse to cut, but it looks as good.”

Grouse and Dawsum both yielded about 10.5t/ha in their comparison, again excluding headlands. “I did think when I was combining Dawsum it would outdo Grouse, but Grouse kept up with it,” says Stephen.

“Dawsum gave a slightly better bushel weight of 82kg/hl versus 80 for Grouse, but they were both comfortably within spec for our local general milling outlet – our first field of Grouse made 11% protein.”

All first wheats on the farm receive muck of some kind, so nitrogen was reined back to 180kg/ha. All had chlormequat + Moddus with the Iblon-based T1, and Terpal at T2, 2 litres/ha after broiler litter and 1 litre/ha elsewhere along with Univoq-based fungicide application. T3 was a combination of strob and teb.

“We didn’t apply a T0 as it was too wet to travel, and when we could we prioritised grassweed control,” says Stephen. “But everything looked well throughout.”

None of the conventional wheats on the farm were sprayed with insecticide in the autumn – RGT Grouse, being BYDV-resistant, doesn’t need any. No serious BYDV symptoms were visible in the conventional varieties and none in the Grouse. “Whether there was a small yield effect I can’t say – it all looked good,” says Stephen.

“Grouse’s BYDV resistance is definitely useful, as we try not to spray insecticides if possible. We do usually treat early drilled wheats and barley, although it is a bit hit and miss to be honest.

“The insecticide-free crop payment of £45/ha under SFI is another consideration, so we’ll be putting a lot of Grouse into that,” he adds. “We’ll be growing at least 160ha this autumn.”

RGT Lantern shines as second wheat

Stephen grew RGT Lantern as a second wheat for the third year running. The variety got off to a good start – the first 34ha did 10t/ha.

“We drilled Lantern in mid-October and it was seriously wet afterwards – we had 50-60mm of rain in the three days after drilling,” says Stephen.

“We couldn’t get on to slug-pellet it for a month so weren’t expecting it to cope as well as it did. It has the same inputs as the other wheats but we increased nitrogen to 240kg/ha as we don’t use muck on second wheat.

“This was grown in one of our best fields, so the rest might not do quite as well, but we will be growing it again this season.”

Check out our feedback from Nigel Britland on RGT Grouse; https://ragt.uk/now-is-the-time-to-try-rgt-grouse/