Cornish Wheat demo- The future of wheat breeding.

This is my wheat demonstration site near St Austell, Cornwall. The area is known as an arable area with potatoes, wheat, barley, maize and brassicas being commercially grown.

This year has seen very dry conditions early in February through to June, along with hot temperatures in March and cool temperatures and high wind speeds in May that has made spraying very difficult. Yellow rust was well established early on, with Oakley and Robigus particularly affected in fields in the area.

Septoria has rapidly established in June with the cool wet conditions that have prevailed, greatfully breaking the drought, but placing drought stressed plants under greater stress from disease What is very interesting is the way in which plants have responded to this in the untreated plot areas. Given that the treated areas have had a full fungicide spray control program of T0, T1, T2 and T3, it is gratifying to see that this has worked well with most varieties. The untreated areas however have really tested the varieties with some hardly having any green leaf area on leaf 2 and flagleaf at all.

Invicta, Gravitas and Stigg are the varieties that are cleanest, with Stigg absolutely stunningly clean with very little sign of any disease in the untreated area. This certainly is an incredible feat when you look at the disease levels in other varieties which are rated 5-7. Stigg offers disease resistance to a level never seen before and as such is 'revolutionary' in the what it brings to the farmers' arsenal. It's not the perfect wheat yet, as it has a low specific weight, however it is perfect for wholecrop, crimping, or any dairy farmer/livestock farmer who grows his own feed to put through his stock. 'Dairy farmers wheat' this variety certainly is with it's ease of growing.

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