Biscuit wheat Astronomer performs well on the Fens

Lincolnshire grower David Hoyles reports pleasing yields with a late-September drilled seed crop of biscuit wheat LG Astronomer.

Mr Hoyles (right), of GH Hoyles Ltd in Long Sutton, saw two fields yield 13.2-13.4 t/ha – well above the farm’s five-year average of 11.6 t/ha. The crop was harvested at 13.3-13.6% moisture on 27-28 July.

“This does include two lower yielding seasons where we had very wet autumns and lower levels of radiation in the spring,” says Mr Hoyles. Both fields this year followed vining peas and were min-tilled and drilled in late September.

“We had very little disease at the beginning of the season, so skipped the T0. It was wet in April so the T1 was more robust, containing Revystar (47.5 g/l fluxapyroxad and 100 g/l mefentrifluconazole), Arizona (folpet) and a good dose of PGR.”

It was dry again by the T2 timing, so only Firefly (10g/l prothioconazole and 45g/l fluoxastrobin) and boron were applied. An earlier than normal T3 at the end of May consisted of Uinvoq (50g/L fenpicoxamid &100 g/l prothioconazole) & boron.

“We didn’t have any issues with Septoria, which we know was a concern with some of the Group 3 wheat varieties last year. As Astronomer is tall, we ensured the PGR programme was robust, and consequently had no problems with lodging.

“We were disappointed that we didn’t have as much soil nitrogen after the vining peas as we had hoped for, which meant the crop received a total of 160kg N/ha which was applied in the seedbed, and three follow up applications.”

LG Astronomer is a high-yielding soft milling wheat, with a very high specific weight and quality that meets distilling market specifications. It is rated 8 for both yellow and brown rust, and 6.8 for Septoria tritici.