Organic Cereal Variety and Variety Mixture Trials 1999 - 2003

Summary

The aim of this work was to improve the productivity and stability of organic cereal production by identifying cereal varieties and variety mixtures that are best adapted to organic farming systems.
The scientific question and objective was to evaluate the relative performance of cereal mixtures against single varieties in organic systems, in terms of consistency, robustness of yield and quality.
The project has run over four years on six sites chosen to represent a range of soil types, climatic conditions and organic systems. All sites were located in the south and east of England.
A range of cereal species, varieties, variety mixtures and interspecies mixtures were investigated. This range included winter and spring wheat, winter and spring oats, winter and spring barley and triticale.
Winter oats and triticale performed best under organic conditions followed by winter wheat, spring barley and spring oats. Spring wheat performed poorly. Winter oats and triticale also showed the greatest yield stability across the years and sites.