DSV continues to put the ability of its varieties to thrive in a range of challenging growing conditions at the heart of its breeding development programme with extensive European trialling used to test this, says Sarah Hawthorne of DSV UK.
Improving yield still very much at the forefront of breeding development work whilst increasing efficiency of Nitrogen utilisation and making plants increasingly resilient are some of the many development areas now been focused on, she says.
“When it comes to oilseed rape, for example, developing varieties that can better stand up to flea beetle is a definite priority.
“But three years of challenging weather across Europe ranging from dry conditions at sowing to too wet to drill and hot dry weather at flowering to ‘beasts from the east’, have proven just how resilient modern oilseed can be.
“Whilst the inherent high vigour of modern hybrids undoubtedly has much to do with this, the breeders’ focus on developing varieties with deep taproots and large branching root architectures has also really come into its own in recent years.”
On the wheat front, new DSV Champion has been bred for low-input regenerative farming systems as well as ones focused on maximising outputs, she says.
“DSV Champion has an outstanding overall yield profile in both treated and untreated scenarios delivering the highest yield across both years of official trials.
“Our own trials suggest the variety performs particularly well in the Eastern region with a robust package for agronomics, disease resistance and grain quality.”
DSV Champion comes from the same stable as DSV Theodore, the cleanest variety on the current RL with a Septoria resistance score of 8.3.
“DSV is the only company breeding wheat in the west of the country and this gives varieties like Champion and Theodore real UK-wide disease resistance and resilience.
“Such varieties are going to become even more important in the future as growers look to cut back on inputs and move to more sustainable production systems.
“But its always important to keep genetic strength at the heart of new varieties so they have the best chance of delivering their full potential in the face of increasingly challenging growing conditions in the future.”