When choosing your wheat variety this season, take a close look at those important decimal points in the HGCA ratings, advises Bill Angus, Nickerson’s senior wheat breeder.

“The HGCA/CEL winter wheat recommended list is available as a printed version, a pdf file, and as an Excel spreadsheet – and it is the spreadsheet you should be looking at when making your variety choice,” says Mr Angus. “The disease and other ratings are rounded up or down in the printed and pdf versions to give a whole number – but that is not the whole story.

Take the Septoria tritici rating of Humber and Alchemy.  They are both a ‘6’ on the printed list.  But dig a bit deeper and look at the spreadsheet version and you will get a more accurate picture.  Humber is a 5.5, and this rating is rounded up to a 6, which is fair enough.  While Alchemy is a 6.4 and is rounded down to a 6 and we have no quarrel with that either.  But for growers looking at varietal resistance to Septoria, there is a meaningful agronomic difference between the two – almost a whole point.”

There are plenty of other examples when you sit down and take a good look at the data, notes Mr Angus:  “So much hard work goes into the HGCA/CEL trials programme, and the results, that they deserve the detailed insight the spreadsheet gives you – and the information is just a click away on their web site at www.hgca.com.”

For further information contact Lee Robinson or Bill Angus on 01472 370152
or email; enquiries@nickerson.co.uk