Two new winter cereal varieties from breeder Syngenta have been added to the latest Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) Recommended Lists for 2024/25.
Both are winter cereal varieties, with one being winter wheat and one being winter barley.
New on the 2024/25 AHDB Recommended List is Syngenta’s winter wheat SY Cheer, rated as a provisional UK Flour Millers (UKFM) Group 1 variety, which makes it a potential bread-making variety.
Syngenta seeds marketing manager, Kathryn Hamlen, said the variety is the first new addition to the Group 1 section of the AHDB winter wheat Recommended List since 2017.
“Usefully in the Group 1 category, SY Cheer provides a practical combination of high grain quality, high yields and robust foliar disease resistance,” she said.
“We see it as a quality wheat made simple. It is an exciting variety,” she adds.
“As well as a UK treated yield of 97% of control varieties on the RL, SY Cheer has given consistently high treated yields across all UK regions, only varying by 1% point.”
From a quality perspective, Hamlen said SY Cheer’s key features include high figures for both Hagberg Falling Number and specific weight among Group 1 AHDB Recommended List winter wheat varieties – with figures of 299 and 79.5 kg/hl respectively.
“A variety that starts from a high quality base can give a useful buffer for protecting milling premiums – for example in wet harvests which can cause Hagbergs in particular, to suffer,” she said.
“Meanwhile, the disease resistance ratings for SY Cheer, of a 6 against Septoria tritici, seven against yellow rust and six against brown rust, give it a good foundation against these three major UK pathogens.
“This good disease resistance drives its high untreated yield.”
Final UKFM classification on the quality of SY Cheer is hoped for in spring 2024, Hamlen said.
SY Buzzard
SY Buzzard is a new hybrid barley added to the winter barley 2024/25 AHDB Recommended List.
SY Buzzard is the first Syngenta hybrid on the list, bringing tolerance to the barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), the breeder said.
Syngenta seeds technical expert Ben Urquhart said, when left uncontrolled, BYDV can reduce winter barley yield by as much as half.
“Importantly, as well as BYDV tolerance, SY Buzzard also maintains the other usual hybrid barley characteristics,” he said.
“These include high and stable yield, good specific weight, suppression of certain grass weeds, early maturity and efficient utilisation of nitrogen fertiliser.
“Hybrid barley also has flexible end uses – including feed grain, but also wholecrop for either anaerobic digestion or forage.”
Yield-wise, Urquhart said SY Buzzard brings a high UK treated yield of 103% of control varieties on the new winter barley AHDB Recommended List and “particularly notable” yield performance in the East at 104% of controls.
“It combines these yields with good disease resistance, including the highest resistance rating to net blotch on the 2024/25 winter barley AHDB RL, of seven, plus good resistance to lodging and a low level of brackling,” he said.
“It is also early to mature, with a rating of minis one. An early harvest can be important for farm cash flow and to provide a good entry for winter oilseed rape.”
In Syngenta trials where winter barley was inoculated with aphids infected with BYDV, Urquhart said reduced visual symptoms of yellowing and dwarfing, and a lower level of yield degradation, were seen in SY Buzzard compared with a non-tolerant variety.
