PGRO Pulse Crop Bulletin: 7th December 2012
Stephen Belcher, PGRO principal technical officer, comments on the new 2013 Recommended Lists:
Combining Peas
White-seeded
Mascara and Gregor remain fully recommended. Yield-wise these are just beaten by the new top-yielding variety Salamanca (LS Plant Breeding), which gains a full recommendation for 2013. Salamanca has good standing ability and good downy mildew resistance. Kenzzo is just a little further behind in terms of yield and progresses to 2nd year provisional recommendation (P2).
Large blues
Top-yielding Crackerjack and Prophet have again given consistent yields and, along with Daytona, remain fully recommended. New to the RL for 2013 is Stratford (Limagrain UK). While yield is a little below the best, it does have a top rating of 9 for downy mildew resistance.
Small blues
Hawaii and Maple peas Rose and Mantara remain fully recommended varieties within their respective categories.
Marrowfats
Sakura tops the marrowfat yield rankings and, along with Genki, remains fully recommended. These are now joined by Neon (Limagrain UK), which gains a full recommendation for 2013. New to the RL with P1 recommendation is Bibao (IAR Agri), which has similar yield and agronomic characters to Genki. Strada progresses from P1 to P2 recommendation and maintains its top downy mildew rating of 9.
Winter Beans
No real changes to the RL, with pale hilum types - Husky, Wizard and Sultan - and Black hilum types - Arthur and Clipper - all remaining fully recommended varieties. Pale hilum Honey, which has short, stiff straw and a yield similar to Sultan progresses from P1 to P2 recommendation. Four new varieties will enter RL trials for 2013.
Spring Beans
Renewed interest in spring cropping has coincided with an exciting time for spring beans. There is one new full recommendation and two new high-yielding provisional recommendations. Spring bean seed is expected to be in strong demand for 2013 and established varieties Fury, Fuego and Pyramid all remain fully recommended.
These are joined by Babylon (Limagrain UK), which gains a full recommendation for 2013. Babylon, a pale hilum type, yields similar to Fuego and has better downy mildew resistance. After gaining National Listing, Boxer was added to the 2012 RL and, for 2013, progresses from P1 to P2 recommendation with a 4% yield advantage over Fuego.
Two new pale hilum types, Vertigo and Fanfare (both LS Plant Breeding) gain P1 recommendations for 2013. Vertigo is the top-yielding variety on the RL, with a significant 11% yield advantage over Fuego. Fanfare is also high-yielding, just a little behind Vertigo.
