Amalie, the resistant TuYV OSR variety, has yielded 5t/ha in its first commercially recorded harvest, a tonne per hectare over non-resistant varieties on the same farm.
Harvested at the Hutchinsons Blackgrass Centre at Brampton on Monday 20th July, the 30ha block of Amalie yielded as much as 7.5t/ha in some places but averaged out on the weighbridge at 5t/ha. Similar amounts of non TuYV resistant varieties, Cabernet and Charger yielded 3.8t/ha and 4t/ha respectively says Hutchinsons Dick Neale who has been involved with the crops season-long.
“We can assume that the yield difference must come down to the TuYV resistance as the crops were all treated the same throughout the season, and infact all the crops were swathed so could actually have yielded about 0.25t/ha more.”
Mr Neale confirms that having established well after drilling on the 23rd August, the crops looked good all season, although the non-resistant varieties Cabernet and Charger definitely showed early signs of TuYV infection such as purpling of the leaves, which the Amalie didn’t says Mr Neale.
Amalie remains the only commercially available oilseed rape variety with resistance to TuYV on the market, and the variety was re-submitted as a candidate in the 2014-2015 HGCA RL trials based on this trait.
Amalie is a conventional OSR variety that offers a gross output similar to the widely grown variety, DK Cabernet. “However, our own trials using untreated seed over the last four years have clearly shown that where TuYV is present, Amalie can yield up to around 10% more than non-resistant varieties, so this first commercial result confirming what we have seen in trials is very exciting,” says Will Compson, oilseed product manager with breeders Limagrain.
Mr Compson recognizes that this is just the first result adding that looking ahead we will continue to report on how the variety performs for the rest of the harvest and across regions but this first result is fundamental and means that variety choice will be even more critical than ever and will require a change in mind set where resistance and agronomics play an increasingly crucial role in order to protect yield.
Agronomically the variety offers sound agronomics and robust disease resistance ratings, with a 7 for LLS and 8 for phoma, so with no obvious weaknesses there is a serious case for growers to consider making it part of their OSR cropping this season.
