DAFM: 2026 winter wheat listings to reflect yellow rust resistance trends
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that the 2026 recommended list of winter wheats will reflect current trends in yellow rust resistance.
The new wheat listings will be published over the coming weeks.
A DAFM spokesperson told Agriland: “The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are currently collating data from the 2025 winter wheat trials for the 2026 winter wheat recommended list.
“The performance of varieties in the 2025 winter wheat trials will be taken into account for a wide range of traits, including yellow rust.
“It is expected that the winter wheat recommended list will be published in the coming weeks, which will allow growers to make informed variety choices ahead of the winter sowing season."
Meanwhile, the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB) has carried out a ‘root and branch’ review of yellow rust resistance ratings for wheat varieties featured within recommended lists (RLs) in the UK.
The end result has been some very large falls in recorded values for some widely grown wheat options.
In addition, the RL yellow rust disease resistance ratings have been published earlier than usual. This is to facilitate the adaptation of management strategies for harvest 2026.
All of this follows the appearance of yellow rust in some varieties in RL trials in early spring.
As a consequence, AHDB advised farmers not to rely on the RL 2025/2026 yellow rust ratings when setting fungicide programmes.
RL adult plant disease resistance ratings use a numerical scale from 1 (least resistant) to 9 (most resistant).
Disease ratings for rusts (yellow and brown) are based on data from three trial years.
However, since RL 2021/2022, the data has been weighted to give more recent data a greater influence on the ratings. This makes them more sensitive to changes in the rust population.
Because of the sudden widespread emergence of the new yellow rust strain, its specific ratings have been limited to harvest 2025 data that best represent the current situation.
At the heart of the yellow rust flare up has been the breakdown of a specific Yr15 gene, which may feature in about a third of RL wheat varieties.
A dozen varieties saw ratings fall by two to five points in the updated RL data release.
Some other varieties believed to contain the Yr15 gene carry other effective yellow rust resistance genes and have recorded relatively little change in their ratings.
