United Kingdom
August 19, 2022
Pushing Skyfall for milling quality paid off for Leicestershire grower Will Oliver this season.
Will usually grows the variety for feed on the clay loams at Swepstone Fields Farm. He favours it after beans and taking advantage of its relative earliness to bring harvest forward to help spread the workload.
“This year we decided to push Skyfall for milling as we believed the premium could be a lot better, given the price of nitrogen which apparently caused quite a few growers to hold back,” says Will.
All wheats receive 240kg/ha of N, but the Skyfall had an additional 20 kg/ha from a 10 litre/ha application of MZ28, a foliar-applied, controlled release nitrogen fertiliser.
“I’m glad we went ahead,” says Will. “In the end our milling crop averaged 9.4t/ha and mostly 13% protein, with a little bit at 12.8%, and we achieved a £48/t premium.”
Skyfall, which remains the UK’s leading Group 1 wheat after nine years on the Recommended List, has been a fixture on the farm for years, one of three key varieties grown. This year’s milling crop was direct drilled in mid October, and a further 6ha after maize grown for seed was TopDowned then drilled.
That block achieved 10.2t/ha, the second highest yield on the farm and comfortably above this season’s 9t/ha average for all wheats.
“I tend to find a variety, learn about it and stick with it for quite a long time rather than dabble in loads of different ones,” says Will.
“If you don’t let yellow rust get a foothold, Skyfall is easy enough to manage. We applied a pretty robust fungicide programme, starting with tebuconazole at T0, which seemed to do the trick. We used Elatus Era at T1 and Univoq at T2. We finished off with tebuconazole and Proline at T3.”
Judging by these results, Skyfall will remain a fixture on the farm for a while yet. “I’ll certainly be ordering more seed for next season,” Will confirms.
Andrew Pitts says Skyfall, along with his other winter wheats, performed beyond his wildest expectations in a drought year on the chalky boulder clays at Mears Ashby, Northamptonshire.
“Our soil moisture deficit in mid August was 7.5-8in, double what we would normally expect, which shows how dry it has been.”
Since May the farm received just 25mm of rain, but Andrew believes good soil management has increased soil organic matter and preserved root and worm channels from previous seasons.
This has helped crops put down strong healthy root systems, which, along with an abundance of sunshine has driven the exceptional yields.
The crop received a four-spray fungicide programme, with T0 and T1 primarily aimed at rusts, with “very good success”.
“Our 60ha of first wheat Skyfall grown for seed averaged over 11t/ha, and was our best crop of the year, although it was on the stronger ground.
“The 200ha of second wheat Skyfall for milling also did exceptionally well at over 10t/ha cleaned over Camgrain’s weighbridge, matching our first wheat yields we’d achieve in a normal year.”
Despite the high yield, proteins held up well at 12.8-13.05%, so will go for milling albeit with the odd claim.
“It goes without saying that Skyfall will be a big variety for us again next year,” says Andrew.
Skyfall hit the highs at PC Tinsley’s Hurn Hall Farm, near Holbeach in Lincolnshire.
The 23ha crop, grown for seed after sugar beet and potatoes, was drilled in in mid November and grew away well, thanks to the open autumn.
It received a total of 235kg/ha of nitrogen after sugar beet and 180kg/ha after potatoes.
Fungicides were applied according to need. “We put on a half-rate tebuconazole on 19 April as yellow rust was present at low levels and the weather was conducive,” says managing director Mark Tinsley.
“With rust in mind we followed that with 0.9 litres/ha Elatus Era at T1 and Univoq at 1.2 litres at T2 plus a half-rate tebuconazole which probably wasn’t needed. We finished with Prosario at 0.8 litres/ha at T3.”
Crops were watered by showers at critical times, which together with moisture- retentive soils and plenty of sunshine kept crops going right through to harvest. As a result, the Skyfall yielded an average of 12.1t/ha.
“It really felt like 1984, when our wheats averaged 10t/ha of wheat and thought we’d cracked growing wheat,” says Mark. “But, of course, we hadn’t. The weather still largely dictates how successful we are.”
Skyfall
- The nation’s favourite Group 1 wheat
- Widest sowing window
- Only Group 1 with OWMB resistance and Pch1 eyespot resistance
- Short, stiff straw
- Late-season security – strong on brown rust and fusarium
- Early ripening
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