The spring series of cereal cultivar trials has again confirmed the high yield performance of cultivars entering the system over the past two years. The six top performing spring feed barley cultivars yielded an average of 11 t/ha or above across all of the Canterbury trials in the 2014-15 season. These included Sanette and Kelim plus four pre-commercial cultivars. The new bread wheat cultivar Discovery (KWM31) was again the highest yielding in the Canterbury spring sown wheat trials, with an average yield of 11.7 t/ha.
Remember that four year yield data is much more robust than one year data. The more trials a cultivar has been in, the more confidence can be taken from its reported performance. This is demonstrated in the four year yield tables. The least significant difference (LSD) is used to test whether or not the difference between two cultivars is significant. The difference in yield between two cultivars must be greater than the LSD for those two cultivars to be proven different statistically. When comparing two established cultivars, the LSD is lower than when comparing first year cultivars with established ones. For example, for the Canterbury spring barley four year means, the LSD for established cultivars is 4.7 compared with 7.4 for new cultivars.
For example, the pre-commercial cultivar SFR85-014, which is in its first year in trials, had the highest yield in Canterbury at 106 of the mean yield, but because its LSD is 7.4 that yield is not considered to be significantly higher than Tavern at 99. Although, Sanette yielded lower at 104, its yield is considered to be significantly higher than Tavern because after three years of trials it is an established cultivar with an LSD of 4.7.
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
Research Manager