Recommended listing of winter oat varieties for 2025/2026 published
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has published the list of recommended winter oat varieties for the 2025/2026 season.
It makes familiar reading.
Three varieties are fully recommended: Husky, WPB Enya, and WPB Isabel.
Husky is a very early maturing, spring type variety, with good yield potential. It is moderately resistant to lodging and moderately susceptible to straw breakdown.
The variety is also moderately susceptible to mildew and susceptible to crown rust. Grain quality is good.
Enya is a moderately early maturing, spring type variety, with very good yield potential.
It is short-strawed with moderate susceptibility to lodging and moderate resistance to straw breakdown.
Enya is moderately susceptible to mildew and crown rust. Grain quality is good.
Isabel is a moderately late maturing, spring type variety, with good yield potential. It shows good resistance to lodging and straw breakdown.
Isabel is moderately susceptible to mildew and crown rust. Grain quality is very good.
DAFM has now published all the recommended lists for the various winter cereal options grown in Ireland.
Goldcrop cereal variety manager, John Dunne, spoke to Agriland on the potential of the various winter planting options now available to Irish tillage farmers.
Where winter barley is concerned, Integral has moved to fully recommended status. It has a great combination of yield potential, good straw strength and Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) tolerance.
Dunne said: “We have reasonably good availability of Integral and we expect it to sell out.
“KWS Tardis is still holding its own even against the BYDV 2 row barley varieties. It really shows that Tardis is a reliable performer across different years and soil types.”
The Goldcrop representative also highlighted some other options available.
“We have a very small amount of a new 6 row BYDV winter barley called Littoral. It is like Integral but is slower developing," he said.
“This slower development could be useful for early planting and should make PGR timings easier in the spring.
“Littoral has a lower KPH, probably about 1 point below Belfry. It has very good disease resistance and excellent straw.”
Where winter wheat is concerned, Goldcrop has three new varieties added to the 2025/2026 provisional recommended List: RGT Hexton; KWS Scope; and LG Rebellion
According to the Goldcrop representative, Hexton has very good straw and excellent yield potential. Graham is one of its parents.
It is later ripening and constitutes a very good second wheat. As it is slow developing, it is suitable for earlier sowing.
Scope has excellent straw strength and very high yield potential. It is similar to Hexton for septoria but does need minding for yellow rust.
Scope is slow developing and so is suitable for earlier sowing.
Meanwhile, LG Rebellion is quite different from the above varieties. It is quick developing and vigorous.
It is not for early sowing but is perfect for normal or later sowing dates. It is very strong on yellow rust and is equivalent to Graham in terms of septoria. It has very good straw.
Dunne said: “We have reasonably good seed supply of Hexton but it is moving well and I expect it to sell out shortly. However, supplies of Scope will be scarce.
“Rebellion will be the earliest ripening variety on the market. It also has the PCH1 Eyespot gene, which gives it very strong resistance to True Eyespot.
“We have reasonably good seed supply of Rebellion but it is moving strongly and I expect it to sell out shortly.
According to the Goldcrop representative, Enya is now the highest yielding oat variety on the winter cereal list.
Its combination of yield, quality and agronomics makes it an excellent choice, Dunne said.
