Princess has shown that even after 25 years, it is still the variety to beat when it comes to achieving maximum returns, by beating all-comers in this year's BEPA Pea Crop Challenge.
This latest victory, in which Princess achieved a margin/ha of £430.38, is the second time that the Advanta variety has won in the three years that the competition has been run by the British Edible Pulse Association.
The victorious Princess crop was entered by Syngenta, and topped an entry of 21 crops submitted by growers, advisors and companies. It is significant that whilst Princess achieved a winning margin of £430.38/ha from a yield of 4.32t/ha at 15%MC, the margin range was widespread with the 'wooden spoon' going to a crop of Kahuna with a margin of -£26 after seed and input costs.
The winning crop was drilled on 18th March at a rate of 310kg/ha and seed dressed with Wakil. Weed control was based around the use of Skirmish (0.75 l/ha) and Basagran (0.3kg/ha) at early post emergence, whilst the fungicide programme included Amistar, Bravo and Hallmark Zeon, giving a total chemical input cost of just £101/ha.
In the 25 years since Princess was first introduced, nothing has bettered the variety for maximum return, mainly due to the high premium it attracts by being the variety of choice for the dried chip shop mushy pea market. This was reflected in the competition where the winning crop of Princess was valued at £160/tonne.
Over this time, Princess has proved the ideal variety for this sector on account of the fact that it:
• rehydrates well and evenly
• cooks quickly
• retains the best flavour, texture and colour
It is on account of these market requirements that Princess has retained such high demand and, as the results of this years BEPA competition has shown, attracts the high premium required to achieve good crop returns.
