Gold for Yorkshire grower at YEN Milling Wheat Quality Awards

A farmer from West Yorkshire has won the 2021 ADAS Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) Milling Wheat Quality Award.

The golden award was picked up by Peter Trickett at the annual AHDB Milling Wheat Conference, held earlier this month (1 March 2022).

The award-winning winter wheat was grown on Mr Trickett’s Fortshot House Farm, Wike, near Leeds, and harvested in 2021.

Mr Trickett has grown milling wheat for over 20 years, experience that helps him produce crops at the required specification.

Variety: Crusoe

Rotational position: First wheat

Sown: Late-September 2020

Seed rate: 270 seeds/m²

Nitrogen: 300 kg/ha, applied across four splits – March, April (x2) and early May (just before flag leaf)

Yield:11.24 t/ha

Protein content: 13.2%

Hagberg Falling Number (HFN): 337 seconds

Specific weight: 75 kg/hl

Mr Trickett's wheat was judged to be the best across all assessment criteria, which also considered the results of flour, dough and baking analyses, although the specific weight was a little low.

Mr Trickett has grown Crusoe since 2014, because of the variety’s consistency and reliability. The second and third place competitors also grew Crusoe.

He believes that his success with milling wheat is partly due to providing the crop with sufficient nitrogen, keeping it standing, and harvesting it as soon as it is ripe.

Mr Trickett said “We applied plant growth regulator three times and used a three-spray fungicide programme. In 2021, we dropped the T0 spray because of the withdrawal of chlorothalonil.”

To protect quality, specifically HFN, Mr Trickett started to harvest his milling wheat at 19% moisture content, with crop moisture content not dropping below 16.5%.

His achievement is particularly outstanding, considering the crop’s field flooded in early November when a bordering river burst its banks.

Richard Carr of Lawling Hall Farm, Latchingdon in East Essex, finished in second place. His crop of Crusoe (drilled 20 October 2020), sponsored by Hutchinsons, yielded 9.9 t/ha. This yield is lower than the farm’s long-term average, which Mr Carr puts down to the dullness of the summer and the cold spring. The crop achieved a protein content of 14.1%, an HFN of 369 seconds, and a specific weight of 77.2 kg/hl.

Edward Vipond, Troston Farms, Stanton in Suffolk, finished in third place. His BASF-sponsored Crusoe (drilled 18 September 2020) yielded 10.27 t/ha, with 12.4% protein, an HFN of 350 seconds, and a specific weight of 78.5 kg/hl.

The YEN Milling Wheat Quality Awards promote excellence and innovation in milling wheat production.

The conference also covered the technical aspects of growing milling wheat, and the latest market and policy information. It also featured perspectives from hauliers, millers and bakers.

Specific weight: 76 kg/hl

Protein content: 13%

Minimum Hagberg Falling Number: 250 HFN; s

Maximum moisture content: 15%