You have likely chosen your cereal varieties for the season, and in some cases, they would have been planted months ago. Yield potential would have been a major factor in your decision, but how you manage that variety through the season can determine how close to maximising its potential you can get. Understanding the unique traits of each variety becomes critical, and targeted input decisions, tailored to those traits, can make the difference.
Every variety has its own strengths and weaknesses. Traits like plant height, straw strength, and disease resistance ratings should directly influence how you manage your growth regulator and fungicide inputs. For example, taller or weaker-strawed varieties may require growth regulators, especially under high fertility conditions, to reduce the risk of lodging. In contrast, robust shorter-strawed varieties may need little or no growth regulator inputs, saving on costs.
Just as important is disease susceptibility. Not all varieties carry the same resistance, and not all fungicides are equal. Applying a broad-brush fungicide programme, without consideration for the specific risks facing your crop, can lead to spending money in the wrong places, or worse, missing control windows. Knowing the disease profile of your variety helps ensure fungicides are not only correctly timed but targeted to the diseases most likely to impact yield and quality. Septoria, ramularia, scald, net blotch, fusarium, and rusts, amongst others, each respond best to specific fungicide groups at specific timings.
Even trickier, disease tolerances are becoming a greater moving target with the continuing development of fungicide resistance. Understanding individual active ingredients, as opposed to wider fungicide groups, is more important than ever. This, combined with knowing how to manage these individual active ingredients, ensures we slow down shifts in sensitivities as much as possible.
This is where our agronomy team adds real value. We understand local conditions and have built up deep knowledge of how different varieties perform across seasons, soil types, and input levels. Our advice is backed by long-standing relationships with the companies developing these products and supported by our own internal R&D and trial work. We have a strong knowledge base of which products work best, when to apply them, and are constantly fine-tuning these programmes to suit your crops’ needs year-on-year.
Combining technical insight with on-farm experience allows us to help you manage these inputs confidently and efficiently. Whether you are growing a feed crop and looking to push yield, looking to protect grain quality for millling, malting grain contracts, or simply looking to get the best return from your investment— understanding your chosen variety’s traits and managing inputs appropriately are essential.
