In the absence of formal organic variety testing mechanisms, British organic farmers struggle to reliably predict
the best performing cereal cultivar to grow on their farm. This jeopardises organic arable production in terms of
yield, quality and reliability, with a shrinking acreage and a shortage of UK-grown organic cereals, especially
wheat.
Solution
A network of British organic wheat growers has been testing
winter wheat cultivars at a field-scale since 2017. Each farmer is allocated a subset of cultivars to grow as strips in their commercial winter wheat field. Yield from each strip is measured and grain samples are tested for grain quality. At wheat anthesis, crop and weed cover, crop height, disease severity, and ear density are assessed by researchers. A plot trial including additional cultivars supports the network with more precise information on diseases and with highlights about new cultivars to test at a field scale.
Description
Practical recommendations
• A control cultivar is included in all farms. Each farm replicates one cultivar in two strips.
• The experiment follows an incomplete block design and can be statistically analysed through mixed-effect models.
• Besides farmers, results can inform seed producers about varieties to multiply organically and breeders about traits relevant to low-input farming.
• Documentation of the cropping systems in use,sheds light on their impact on crop and cultivar performance.
• Data from the farm network can have important secondary uses for crop modellingand monitoring.
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In order to use the comment function, you must register with the third-party provider "Disqus".
When you activate this function, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of the third-party provider. We would like to point out that data is transmitted to the third-party provider after activation, and the latter may set cookies that can also be used for analysis and marketing purposes. For more information, please refer to our privacy policy.
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