The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has published the recommended list of winter wheat varieties for 2025/2026.

This follows a 2024/2025 growing season during which most wheats performed well despite the enhanced challenge of yellow rust, the department said.

The new listing features four fully recommended and seven provisionally recommended varieties.

The fully recommended list comprises: Fitzroy; Graham; KWS Dawsum; and Spearhead.

Fitzroy is a late maturing variety with good yield potential. It shows good resistance to lodging and straw breakdown plus very good resistance to mildew.

Fitzroy demonstrates good resistance to septoria tritici and yellow rust. It is moderately susceptible to fusarium ear blight and shows good resistance to sprouting. Grain quality is good.

Graham is an early maturing variety with good yield potential. It shows moderate resistance to lodging and moderate susceptibility to straw breakdown.

The variety demonstrates good resistance to mildew. Graham is moderately susceptible to septoria tritici and yellow rust.

It is moderately susceptible to fusarium ear blight and moderately resistant to sprouting. Grain quality is good.

KWS Dawsum is a moderately early maturing variety with good yield potential. It has good resistance to lodging and straw breakdown.

Dawsum demonstrates very good resistance to mildew.  However, it is susceptible to septoria tritici and moderately susceptible to yellow rust.

It shows good resistance to fusarium ear blight and very good resistance to sprouting.

Dawsum has a low thousand grain weight with very good grain quality.

And, finally, Spearhead is a moderately early maturing variety with very good yield potential. It is moderately susceptible to lodging and moderately resistant to straw breakdown.

Spearhead has very good resistance to mildew. It is moderately susceptible to septoria tritici, yellow rust, and fusarium ear blight.

However, the variety is susceptible to sprouting. Grain quality is moderate.

Spearhead recorded the highest relative yield figure in 2024/2025, coming in at 104. The equivalent figures for Fitzroy, Graham, and Dawsum are: 101, 101, and 99.

Of the four recommended varieties, Fitzroy has the highest resistance to yellow rust.

It also demonstrated the highest level of resistance to septoria and mildew.

DAFM conducts cereal trials at three main centres: Backweston Farm, Co. Kildare; Kildalton College, Co. Kilkenny; and Ballyderown Farm, Co. Cork, along with an additional selection of commercial farms.

According to DAFM, this results in a large geographic and climatic spread of trials, which gives confidence to growers who select a variety from a Recommended List on the performance of that variety when grown under Irish conditions.