Varieties are one of the main tools tillage farmers have in fighting against pests and diseases.

In Ireland, we have three main companies searching for varieties suited to Ireland and regions within Ireland, varieties that can stand up to our disease suitable climate and our variable weather conditions.

These varieties are then tested by our Department of Agriculture to produce the recommended lists.

These varieties also have to fit our end uses from animal feed, to malting, to porridge, to small amounts of flour, oil, protein and other oat ingredients.

In recent years, the introduction of barley yellow dwarf virus-tolerant (BYDV) and -resistant varieties in winter barley have been game changers. It is now difficult to get a winter barley variety on the list without tolerance to BYDV.

Lost chemicals

As we lost chemicals to deal with BYDV, they came at an appropriate time. These varieties are now working their way into spring barley and winter wheat, but are another few years away.

Winter wheat has been another challenge, as septoria continues to be the main issue, but rust is now another problem.

However, varieties are now coming on stream that should overcome the issues with rust seen this year and improvements are coming in resistance to septoria. It is great to see such progress in winter wheat.

Spoiled for choice

Spring barley is our biggest crop and growers are now spoiled for choice.

A huge effort has gone into sourcing good malting varieties. New malting varieties have high yield potential, good grain quality, good straw strength, good disease resistance profiles and high spirit yields. It is essential that these varieties are adopted by maltsters.

In a world where we are trying to be more sustainable from an economic and social point of view, it does not make sense that we are growing old varieties that cost more to grow and require more plant protection products when more sustainable options are available.

Check out the varieties Focus in this week's Irish Farmers Journal featuring all the up an coming varieties, news on disease resistance, virus tolerance and seed availability.