Two of the newer wheat cultivars show good promise. The feed wheat cultivar KWW46 joins the top performers. Empress (CRWT 157), a biscuit wheat, combined high yield with good resistance to foliar diseases. The new barley cultivars Garner and Summit, while yielding above average, were slightly back from the highest yielding cultivars in Canterbury.
A wet spring followed by a cooler summer with higher solar radiation benefitted autumn sown cereals on dryland and irrigated lighter soil in Canterbury. Dryland feed wheat yields were up a massive 47% at the Chertsey site and 36% at St Andrews compared with the 4 year mean. Autumn wheat yields in the Southland trials were down about 9% reflecting the dry season. The Manawatu autumn feed wheat trial was affected by a very wet season.
Assessment of the yield potential of early drilled wheat continued for the second season. March and April drilled feed/biscuit wheat trials were established at Chertsey and St Andrews. At Chertsey, the dryland trial benefitted more than the irrigated from March sowing with an additional 1 t/ha and 0.5 t/ha respectively compared with the April sowing date. Wakanui had the largest yield increase of 1.7 t/ha from early drilling at the Chertsey dryland trial. Poor establishment for the March drill date at St Andrews resulted in a 1.5 t/ha lower yield from early drilling this season.
The Cereal Performance Trials (CPT) were again a cooperative effort between FAR, several of the major seed companies and the Flour Millers Association. FAR manages CPT2 which is the second stage of cultivar testing where the commercial (and a few pre-commercial) cultivars are evaluated. With CPT1 there is collaboration between the seed companies for testing advanced breeders’ material from which the most favourable cultivars progress into CPT2.
From this year, cultivar performance in CPT1 is detailed in the cultivar description pages for newly promoted cultivars. This is to provide more information on the consistency of cultivars which have not established a track record over several years in CPT2.
FAR welcomes any queries or suggestions to further improve these booklets, or if you require any additional information that we have not included please contact us.
Rob Craigie
Project Manager