United Kingdom - Growing more from less - Three years of nitrogen efficiency trial data enables growers to optimise variety performance

Commencing in 2020, leading independent seed breeder Elsoms Seeds, together with German seed breeder Saaten Union, began work on a series of new trials aimed at screening all their candidate varieties and near market lines for Nitrogen (N) efficiency confirms Technical Manager for Elsoms, George Goodwin.

Mr Goodwin says ″Elsoms company ambition is ‘Grow more from less’ and the best way to achieve that is to observe how varieties react to Nitrogen in response to differing timings and volumes. The original aim was to see how far we could reduce N inputs without seeing drastic differences in either yield or quality. This not only tells us which of our varieties are the most N efficient, but – as importantly – why they are more efficient, enabling us to isolate those positive genetic traits for use in future cross breeding.

″The key benefit to our growers is that we can then offer them specific husbandry advice when the variety becomes commercialised, saving them money on the cost of N and potentially time, if we can reduce the number of N applications from 3 to 2 on certain varieties. As a breeder this obviously gives us an advantage when marketing our portfolio.

″Although the original market drivers in the initial 2020 trial were sustainability and the environmental considerations of over applying N, the subsequent war in Ukraine and resulting spike in the cost of Nitrogen fertiliser has since created a strong economic case for the new research″ adds Mr Goodwin.

Running the new N efficiency trials across 2 trial sites during the last 3 years, Saaten Union UK Cereal Product Manager Andrew Creasy sees the new 3-year data set as a potential game changer for growers looking to improve their farm’s sustainability, enhance the performance of both Elsoms and Saaten Union varieties and potentially reduce the overall cost of their N inputs.

Andrew says ″Over the last 3 years we’ve annually assessed 10 different winter wheat varieties including 3 controls, across 4 different Nitrogen regimes. The rates we looked at were zero N, 85kg of N – early applied, 150kg of N applied in 2 splits, and finally 200kg of N applied in 3 splits of 50, 100 and then 50kg. Trials were replicated twice each year, on heavy soils at our Cowlinge trial site, and then on lighter soils at our site near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk to give us the widest performance comparison across different soil types.

″Whilst it’s important to highlight that this research is ongoing, and that we are still analysing 3 years of data, several important discoveries have already come to light. One significant result is that of the varieties we’ve trialled, many with French and German parentage, have yielded better when 150kg of N is applied early in the season in 2 splits, than under the longer 3-phase approach of applying 200kg of N.

″Given the recent predominance of dry spring and summer weather it’s clear that much of the late applied N is not getting into the plants due to a lack of soil moisture. However, there’s also enough evidence in the data to suggest that the varieties with German and French parentage perform much better when N is front loaded, regardless of weather conditions – given that not every year has been consistently dry between 2020 and 2022.

″The 2021 N efficiency trials also gave us a revealing insight into optimising yields from the Group 2 milling wheat Mayflower. When 85kg of N was applied early, Mayflower out-yielded competitor variety KWS Extase and when both varieties received 150kg of N, applied early across 2 splits, there was no difference in yield between the 2 varieties.

″Mayflower hasn’t been the only variety to benefit. In the 2022 trial the Group 3 wheat Bamford outyielded LG Astronomer, despite early N sampling tests recording Astronomer as containing a higher amount of N than Bamford at the early flag leaf growth stage. This demonstrated that Bamford was able to make better use of its N than Astronomer in the same growing conditions, and across all input regimes, in 2 different sites.

″Taking varieties out of their comfort zone to find their optimum level of N for yield and quality is a significant step forward when looking to develop new varieties that are able to express the same use efficiency characteristics.  Our future objective will be to pass this key husbandry advice onto agronomists and growers to support them in their variety decision making process″ concludes Andrew.

*  All the N efficiency trial work was carried out by Andrew Creasy , Cereal Product Manager for Saaten Union UK
*  George Goodwin  – Technical Manager for Elsoms Seeds
*   In the 2022 N efficiency trial Group 3 wheat Bamford out-yielded LG Astronomer, despite early N sampling tests recording Astronomer as containing a higher amount of N