An organic crop of Revelation wheat has yielded an astounding 9.9t/ha

The 9ha field of Revelation was drilled at 220kg/ha at the beginning of October, following two years of white clover
The 9ha field of Revelation was drilled at 220kg/ha at the beginning of October, following two years of white clover

"This is the highest yielding crop we have ever had, and we are thrilled with it", says Anna McCowan at seed producers and merchants LC Smales & Son, near Berwick-upon-Tweed. “Rated 9 for yellow and an 8 for brown rust and strong against eyespot, mildew and septoria, Revelation has a very robust disease profile and a high yield potential, which made it the perfect choice for this particular situation.”

Ms McCowan believes that the strong emphasis on managing the weed burden as well as possible, within the confines of producing an organic crop, has clearly paid off.

The 9ha field of Revelation was drilled at 220kg/ha at the beginning of October, following two years of white clover. “The clover was ploughed up on 22nd August and we then ran a Kvik-up through the fields twice to reduce the dock population before the crop went in.”

“As the crop began to grow in the spring, it got 2.4t of granulated lime to improve the pH and an application of liquid manganese and sulphur to combat deficiencies. We also ran the sheep over it for a few days to encourage tillering which really got the crop growing.”

“We know from our trials that untreated Revelation has the ability to yield 92% over control, in comparison to a treated value of 103, this small difference of 11% between treated and untreated shows how well the agronomics stack up,” says Ron Granger, arable technical manager with Revelation breeders Limagrain. “As a comparison, market favourite JB Diego which is also considered to be a robust variety, has a 15% difference between treated and untreated.”

Ms McCowan believes that the high yields from this effectively ‘untreated’ crop, have probably come about because the crop got sufficient sunshine at the right time, adding that Revelation is a later maturing crop, so the extra days of sunshine at the end of August –beginning of September will have paid off as this crop was harvested on 10th September.

Ron Granger agrees stating that high yields can be put down to a long cooler season with sufficient rain and sunshine – attributes considered to be valuable for high wheat yield potential.

He adds that Revelation offers valuable agronomic traits required for the organic sector; stiff straw combined with a good tillering ability. Revelation also has excellent disease resistance, particularly for mildew, the rusts, septoria tritici and the additional valuable traits of eyespot resistance (Pch1 resistance) and fusarium ear blight.