Hampshire grower wins this year's YEN Gold Award

The competition provides an opportunity for milling wheat growers to share best practice
The competition provides an opportunity for milling wheat growers to share best practice

Hampshire grower Simon Budden has won this year's YEN Gold Award for his excellence in achieving high yield and quality in Group 1 milling wheats.

Focus and attention to detail shone through at the Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) Wheat Quality Awards 2021.

Mr Budden, of Netherley Farm Partnership in Hampshire, won the top award for his entry, yielding 11.98t/ha with a protein yield of 1.32t/ha.

Award judges noted that Mr Budden demonstrated excellent grain analytical quality.

They said dough quality was good and the baked loaf was excellent, with white breadcrumb colour and texture.

Mr Budden said he entered wanting to showcase his normal farm practice: "We are very pleased to have entered into the YEN Competition.

"The most important part of it is the YEN report we get at the end. [It] provides a lot of detail for us to take forward and look ahead to next season to hopefully improve on our yields.”

Dr Sarah Clarke, ADAS Research Scientist, said that despite a very challenging last season for growers, some high-quality entries were entered.

"Whatever the season brings, growers can benchmark and learn more about their quality from entering the YEN Wheat Quality Competition.

"They can also think about carrying out tramline trials for nutrition programmes to see what could be achieved on their farm,” she said.

The top three farmers produced a video commentary on their harvest 2020 entries.