Two winter wheat varieties are proving a complementary pair at Northumberland Estates as part of a drive to improve the farm’s performance.

Percy Farms, a 1800ha arable farming business operating within the estates near Alnwick, added Bamford and Blackstone to its list of first wheats ahead of Harvest 2025.

Explaining the decision, assistant farm manager Tom Ziemelis says it’s part of the business’ strategy to improve both winter wheat yields and grain quality, in hope of creating further opportunities to achieve premiums.


Top crop

Tom, who works for Velcourt, adds that with an overall area of 800ha, winter wheat is the farm’s number one crop. “We’re confident that the two new additions will make a significant contribution towards both grain quality and final yield outcomes from the coming harvest onwards.

“Group 4 soft wheat Blackstone was a straight replacement for our previous variety, which had started to break down to both septoria and yellow rust during the past two seasons. With a wide drilling window and a solid set of resistance scores, including a 9 for yellow rust, we identified Blackstone in trials last year and eventually drilled 135ha on 19 September.”

Tom says the crop has shown its competitiveness against a high grassweed and broadleaf weed burden. “Blackstone wintered well and kicked on again in late February following its first application of nitrogen at 90kgN/ha.

“By the time of our T0 fungicide application in early April, it remained pretty clean with just a hint of yellow rust visible at the base of the crop.”

Bamford

The second addition to the farm is Group 3 soft wheat Bamford. “Percy Farms has always had a strong business interest in growing Group 3s and is part of a grain co-operative supplying the UK biscuit market, so the future fit with Bamford looks potentially a very good one,” explains Tom.

Drilling 135ha on 27 September, he adds that the crop grew away well and if anything, kicked on even more strongly than Blackstone following its 90kgN/ha application of granular N on 27 February.

“With two Elsoms varieties accounting for a combined area of 270ha, just over one third of our total wheat area, commercial expectations for premiums are high although this is balanced by the excellent grain segregation within the grain co-operative we supply.

“Each load can be sent to a multitude of bins with different targets for premiums including both biscuit and distilling with the backstop of a high-yielding feed wheat for any load that may not make specification,” says Tom.

Drilling window

Clare Leaman, cereals variety specialist for NIAB, comments that with a very wide drilling window, Blackstone can allow Bamford and many other winter wheats to be drilled and harvested at their optimum times.

“On risk management, it offers OWBM resistance so it’s a good fit alongside varieties such as Bamford that don’t have this trait. I can see many scenarios where both Elsoms varieties could work well together within larger rotations,” she concludes.