United Kingdom
October 8, 2024
The variety builds on many of the agronomic strengths that made KWS Extase such a popular choice on farms, but brings with it higher yield potential and even earlier maturity.
“It’s a high yielding hard feed wheat and has shown very consistent high yield potential across testing seasons and regions, with additional desirable agronomic characteristics,” says Limagrain Field Seeds arable technical manager, Ron Granger.
Early maturity is a particularly valuable characteristic of LG Rebellion, offering growers in many parts of the country, north and south, a way to spread harvest workloads or provide an early entry for following crops, such as oilseed rape, he says.
LG Rebellion has strong tillering ability and good spring vigour, and suits drilling around the traditional October window. However, it can also perform well when sown later, into November, providing conditions allow, therefore could make a good choice for growers looking to sow wheat after later harvested potatoes, sugar beet, or maize, Mr Granger says.
“While LG Beowulf remains the highest yielding variety in late drilling situations on the present AHDB Recommended List, there is also a good opportunity for extended drilling dates with LG Rebellion, because it’s so quick out of the blocks regarding its vigour in the spring. It produces strong tillers and responds very well to PGR programmes.”
Another key strength of LG Rebellion is its consistently high untreated yield. The 2024 AHDB provisional harvest results (published 26 September) show that LG Rebellion delivered the second highest mean untreated yield over the four years to this harvest (2020-2024), at 117% of control.
This is partly due to an excellent disease resistance profile, especially for Brown Rust and Septoria, plus the variety also offers Pch1 eyespot resistance, which will be particularly important for growers looking to grow it in a second wheat situation, says Mr Granger. Indeed, LG Rebellion has performed well in second wheat situations, he notes.
Grain quality is excellent, offering a high Hagberg and specific weight, although he reminds growers that it is a hard Group 4 feed wheat with ukp export potential, rather than a Group 2 quality wheat like its parent.
“It’s a KWS Extase derivative with 4% higher yield, offering yields comparable with the best hard feed wheats commercially available.
“But choosing a variety should never be just about yield,” he adds. “While yield is important, it’s also important to consider all of the other attributes that a variety offers growers on farm, whether that’s variety positioning, early maturity, disease resistance, or grain quality.”
LG Rebellion spreads workloads on Cambs farm
Cambridgeshire farmer Michael Brown grew 20 ha of LG Rebellion for the first time last season, utilising its early maturity to help spread harvest workloads on the 600 ha farm.
The variety was one of the last to be drilled before the weather broke in the middle of October last year, but despite that, it was easily the first to reach harvest, which this summer was on 30 July.
“The LG Rebellion established well last autumn, but it was in the spring that it grew away really quickly,” he remarks. “Throughout the spring, the variety was easily the most forward of all the wheats I grew.”
Mr Brown’s LG Rebellion also went on to produce the farm’s joint highest winter wheat yield last season, averaging 10.5 t/ha, with a specific weight of 78 kg/hl.
On the back of that strong performance, he is increasing the area of LG Rebellion for this season, with 30 ha being grown for seed, and another 30 ha as a commercial crop.
Alongside LG Rebellion‘s early maturity, Mr Brown also values its strong disease profile, as reflected by the high untreated yield.
“We grow a lot of crops for seed, so generally like to maintain a robust fungicide programme, but it’s good to have the varietal resistance as an insurance policy in the event that the weather prevents us getting on with sprays at the optimum time. There may be scope to reduce inputs slightly on the cleaner varieties, such as LG Rebellion, in the future, so that’s something we may look at doing.”
LG Rebellion
–> Hard Group 4 feed wheat with consistent high yield potential
–> Consistent yield performance over multiple seasons and across regions
–> Very high untreated yield
–> Good disease resistance profile, including Pch1 eyespot resistance
–> Strong tillering with good spring vigour
–> Very early maturity
–> Suitable for drilling from early October onwards
–> Excellent grain quality – ukp export potential
–> A true replacement for growers of KWS Extase and its agronomic type
–> Has shown good black-grass competition in external trials
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