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Wheat research aims to discover if variety blends lead to better milling crops

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Researchers are hoping to discover whether growing a mix of varieties could help deliver better milling wheat crops.

Funded by the AHDB, the four-year project will assess the potential of milling-wheat variety blends to deliver on yield, meet milling specifications and contribute to more sustainable production practices.

Trials will be carried out at two sites across the country, including ÎÞÂ붯»­.

The need for robust information on blends – growing multiple varieties as a single crop – was identified during the most recent review of the AHDB Recommended Lists for cereals and oilseeds.

As well as the potential to deliver stronger yield and quality, farmers and researchers believe cereal blends may produce other benefits too – such as better yield stability and reduced disease severity.

Millers and farmers will be asked about their experience of blends – including whether they have helped reduce fungicide spray intensity, contributed to fungicide-resistance-risk management and prolonged the durability of disease resistance genes.

The AHDB variety blend tool for winter wheat and experience will be used to identify hard milling varieties (UKFM Groups 1 and 2) to include in the project’s dedicated variety blend trials. They will also feature the same varieties in single stands.

Georgia Hassell, who leads the variety blends initiative at AHDB, said: “Based on pedigree information and RL agronomic data, the AHDB variety blend tool for winter wheat can identify potential blends.

“However, as the tool data is based on varieties grown as straights, it does not account for complementarity of traits. In other words, it does not indicate whether a mix will be greater or less than the sum of its parts.

 “These trials will specifically assess how varieties complement each other in mixes – including how they exploit resources in a relatively wide range of timings and spaces.”

Senior lecturer in Agriculture and Environment at Harper Adams, Dr Edward Dickin, said: “Over three seasons we will be growing replicated trial plots of two-, three- and four-way variety blends, and the component varieties as single variety plots.

“Each year one trial will be untreated – so no fungicide - to test the increased disease resistance of variety blends and one trial will be treated with fungicides to test the non-disease related benefits of blends.

“We hypothesise that these benefits will come from varieties with different speeds of development using resources at slightly different times - known as temporal complementarity.

“The use of temporal complementarity in increasing productivity was identified in our work on intercropping as part of EU Horizon2020 CROPDIVA which was completed in August 2025 and the ongoing robot strip cropping project.

“Variety blends are getting increasing interest from farmers especially to control crop diseases but a barrier to their uptake is market acceptance from end-users. AHDB were requested to initiate this project by their levy payers.

“Grain from the blends will be tested by Whitworth Bros for milling and baking quality compared to the single varieties and blends mixed post-harvest from the single varieties.”

It is hoped the new work will deliver evidence on the performance of variety blends, prime conversations among farmers and millers, and ultimately underpin the adoption of blends in the UK.