Arable farmers in the south of Scotland have begun to embrace hard wheats for the feed market, according to French-owned RAGT Seeds.
The seed breeding company’s managing director, Simon Howell told a briefing in Edinburgh that while Scottish producers traditionally used soft wheats, trends were changing.
“A few hard wheats are coming onto the market in Scotland for the feed industry and interest has been creeping up from Northumberland and the Borders,” he said.
However Mr Howell admitted that the trend was unlikely to progress much further north to areas where the distilling industry is the main customer for wheat.
His comments followed a meeting with representatives of the Scottish seed trade, after which he said he had high hopes for his company’s new high-yielding hard wheat variety, Gravity, which went on the recommended list last month.
In a pre-release before recommendation Gravity took 2% of market share and is now the second biggest variety in production for autumn 2018 planting.
Mr Howell pointed out that seed varieties had a much shorter lifespan than they used to have, with many lasting for no longer than three years.
“That’s not long when you consider that it takes seven years to get it to the market place and we need to fund all the breeding and research,” he said.
“The Scottish market is an important one as farmers tend to stick with the same variety for longer than their English counterparts so if they can get established they will be around a lot longer.”
The spring barley variety, Concerto is a good example. Despite its failings, which include a propensity for skinning, it remains popular with farmers and still accounts for 13% of the UK market almost 10 years on from its launch. Planet now takes 23% and Laureate is rapidly catching up, with 70% of seed expected to go into the Scottish market this year.
Mr Howell said: “Concerto will have a long tail as farmers know how to grow it and get the best out of it. But Laureate will take a big quantity this year.”
nnicolson@thecourier.co.uk
