Soils

There is not a single prescriptive course of action given there are so many farming and cropping systems each with differing objectives and timescales but, where stubble management is used for early grass weed control, certain principles in particular stale seedbeds (under the right conditions) can be effective in reducing the seed bank.

The distilling and soft feed varieties feed our main markets in Scotland and include some of the highest yielding examples in trials, but varieties for feed, biscuit and milling markets can include some useful agronomic traits as well as diversifying markets a bit. Some of the key varieties to consider are summarised in the article.

There has been really good progress in yield potential in some of the newer two and six row winter barley options for Scotland. Other agronomic traits are worth looking at too. Some carry specific weaknesses to key disease or differ markedly in standing strength. Early maturity can be important and we have also marked a few as doing particularly well on heavy soils.