The harvest results service delivers the latest data and commentary from our Recommended Lists (RL) variety trials for cereals and oilseeds. Find out how the results are presented and how to access them.

The three RL crop committees and RL board use the results from the RL trials to decide on the fate of each variety for the next edition of the Recommended Lists (released in November or December).

As people make varietal choices throughout the year, one of the main aims of the harvest results service is to make trial data available on the AHDB website faster (shortly after harvest).

The availability of new data is promoted via key communication channels, including harvest results emails.

Data validation

The sequence in which results are published align strongly with commercial harvest. Winter barley delivers the first set of RL harvest results, from mid-late July. However, there is a slight time lag, due to the data collation and validation process.

Validation is an important step, because it eliminates data that does not meet the RL’s strict quality standards. It is important that results provide the fairest possible test of variety performance.

The loss of an unacceptable number of plants at a site is an example of where a trial may be classified as invalid and be removed from subsequent analyses. For instance, this may be due to oilseed rape plots damaged by cabbage stem flea beetle.

Crops covered

Harvest results are released for all crops covered by the RL – both the recommended ‘major’ crops and described ‘minor’ crops.

For the major crops, trial results are published as they become available. For the minor crops, because of the relatively low number of trials, results are only issued after all relevant trial data is available.

'Major' crops (recommended):

• Winter wheat
• Spring wheat
• Winter barley
• Spring barley
• Winter oats
• Spring oats
• Winter oilseed rape

Minor crops (described):

• Spring oilseed rape
• Spring linseed
• Winter triticale
• Winter rye

Documents are added during the growing season, with key trial data added first.

Trial data

Trial site: Covers the location of the trials, as well as other important details, such as the sowing dates, the soil types and the previous crops in the rotation.

Sowing list: Includes a list of varieties in trial, the status on the RL and UK breeder contact information.

Harvest results

Following validation, new results are rapidly added to the website in two report types.

Yield tables: Contain yield results from all harvested trials (fungicide treated and untreated data).

Full harvest results tables: Include yield, quality, agronomic and disease data from all harvested trials.

The latter tables feature numerous worksheets. The ‘Introduction’ worksheet includes a list of characters covered with clickable quick links to individual worksheets.

Following publication of several trial results for a specific crop, the in-house team issues commentary to help provide context for the published data.

Although the data from individual trials is interesting, it is unwise to draw conclusions from a small set of trials. As more trial data is published, the picture often changes. It is important to bear this in mind. The smaller the data set, the greater the caution that needs to be applied when interpreting results.

The harvest results variety yield data includes five-year and four-year means for cereals and oilseed rape, respectively. It is important to consider these means when looking at trial-site data. As these means include data for the current year, they often change during the reporting period as more trial data is released.

Abbreviations are used in the harvest results tables. For ‘soil type’, ‘tillage’, and ‘[previous] crop’, abbreviated and non-abbreviated forms are listed below.

AHDB commercial harvest progress reports are also issued during the main harvest period.

These reports are based on commercial harvest data provided by a network of regional reporters (mostly independent agronomists). 

Reporting frequency varies, being more frequent during the busiest harvest period.

In total, six reports are produced with harvest-progress data also added to an interactive harvest dashboard.