A UK wheat grower has knocked a Kiwi South Islander out of the record books by growing a 16.52 tonnes-a-hectare wheat crop in coastal Northumberland – about eight times the average dryland wheat yield in Queensland.
An excellent UK growing season with lots of sunshine and low disease levels helped farmer Rod Smith beat Southland grower Mike Solari’s current Guinness Book of Records title of 15.63t/ha crop of Einstein grown in 2010.
Mr Smith’s harvest from his paddocks overlooking Holy Island on the rugged north-east coast came in only 10 days after Lincolnshire grower Tim Lamyman’s 16.50t/ha crop in Lincolnshire, on the east coast south of Leeds. Mr Lamyman did not register his crop.
Mr Smith said he achieved the bumper yield of the feed wheat variety Dickens with inputs similar to those used commercially across the farm, which helped push up his average
“We were lucky with the weather and the crop was never under stress,” Mr Smith told Farmers Weekly.
The luxuriant crop came off one of Mr Smith’s most fertile heavy clay fields and will soon take a spot in Guinness Book of Records.
Mr Smith said the paddock had achieved a 15t/ha-plus crop in the past but yield- limiting factors included dry weather, waterlogging, disease, high temperatures or low sunlight hours.
Seed at 185kg/ha, four fungicide sprays and 310kg/ha of nitrogen inputs came in at just under A$16400/ha, or just over $100/t, giving a gross margin of more than $2175/ha, assuming a feed wheat price of $239/t.
Mr Smith harvested the crop on September 1 with his tracked New Holland 9070 combine that had to crawl to cope with the thick crop. At times it registered on the in-cab yield meter at 23t/ha on the better ground.
Independent adjudicators including a survey recorded a crop yield of 16.519t/ha at 15 per cent moisture from the 11.3ha paddock, smashing Kiwi grower Mike Solari’s current Guinness Book of Records title of 15.64t/ha crop grown in 2010. Mr Lamyman has not registered his crop with Guinness.
Mr Smith’s chosen paddock was subsoiled after a crop of spring beans, minimum tilled, then drilled.
“It was very good conditions for drilling with plenty of green manure left over from the bean crop,” he said.
He aimed for a 17t/ha yield at 11pc grain protein so a four-way split of the 310kg/ha of nitrogen was used along with a four-spray plant growth regulator program.
The seed was fungicide treated while the spray program maintained sufficient green leaf through the season to support a crop with an average 820 ears/sq m and 36 grains/ear recorded in July.
Agronomist Andrew Wallace of Agrii said there was plenty of septoria and yellow rust in the area, but it was kept at bay by the dry spring when the early septoria disappeared.
He said the top four leaves of the crop remained green well beyond the T3 head spray stage in June.
Looking ahead, Mr Smith can see even higher yields given the 23t/ha registered in the 2ha of low areas, which gained nutrient run-off.
