For plant breeders this time of year draws many analogies, an expectant father waiting outside the delivery ward, a sixth former waiting for their A level results or a batsman in the nervous nineties ! After 10 years of crossing, selecting, and nurturing it is all down to a handful of trial results to decide the fate of our babies, will they get that extra 1% of yield, what will that standing power rating be, it all goes round and round until the combines hit.

 

It has been another different type of season, following two dryish years we had the horror of 2012 with the incessant rain and huge disease pressure which culminated in the highest level of fusarium in living memory which had a huge effect on yield and grain quality, this year we have seen very low levels of disease generally and we hope that the sunshine brings its reward through improved grain quality.

 

So what are we are hoping for at Limagrain this year? Our winter cereal candidates look an exciting bunch, three very high yielding winter barley candidates, all two row feed with exceptional disease resistance, big bushel weights and early maturity, whats not to like ! So look out for Cadillac, Harlequin and Cavalier.

 

In wheat we have perhaps the best set of candidates we could hope to have in a single year, Evolution a hard feed variety which at the end of NL2 was the highest yielding variety in trial but with a significantly better disease profile than most of the hard feed wheats currently in the market, Panacea is a soft feed wheat which brings the yield of that type right up to the hard feed level (same as KWS Santiago), it is a high input variety though with a robust PGR programme and fungicide regime needed to realise its full potential, last, but not least, we have Zulu a very high yielding group 3 variety, good straw and disease, with resistance to WOBM and soil borne cereal mosaic virus, all very powerful candidates, but now the wait !!!

 

So to use the cricket analogy again, we hope that we have produced a Botham or a Flintoff which excites the crowd in a swashbuckling way but as often as not we get a Jonathan Trott, dependable and steady but usually gets the job done!