A 350-MILE round trip to a cereals event in Lincolnshire paid off for farmer Fred Ryle.

He learnt about cereal varieties he had never heard of – and won 100 hectares (247 acres) of free seed from Nickerson Direct.

Mr Ryle farms 750 acres at Earsden East Farm, Morpeth, Northumberland, where he has sheep and cattle and grows winter wheat, oilseed rape, winter and spring barley, and spring beans.

He said: “I was delighted and very surprised to win the competition. We predominantly grow first winter wheats like Claire and Consort for the Scottish distilling market, as they perform consistently well.

“This was a good opportunity to try some new varieties, including ones that I hadn’t even heard of before.”

Mr Ryle took advice from Sean Lovegreen, Nickerson Direct’s regional seed specialist based in Richmond.

The company supplies highquality seed which has purity and vigour to give consistent high performance.

It pioneered vigour testing – an important development as vigorous seed copes well with poor, cold or wet seedbeds – in the 1970s.

A seed coating ensures an even application of seed treatment products and incorporates a growth-promoting agent to assist good germination and rapid establishment.

Mr Ryle won the free seed at Cereals 2008 and made winter wheat Claire his number one prize choice as it suited earlydrilling.

However, atrocious conditions last autumn saw stocks carried over to this year’s early slot.

Mr Lovegreen also recommended Cassius, a winter wheat variety on the Recommended List as a Group 4 soft feed option.

Mr Ryle used it as a second wheat last autumn with the seed treatment Jockey (fluquinconazole + prochloraz).

“It seemed very vigorous out of the ground and appeared to have even better disease resistance than Claire and Consort, particularly to yellow rust and mildew,” he said.

Hyperion was selected as a “solid second wheat” for the late-drilled slot.

Drilled into reasonable seedbeds no later than mid- October, it showed good disease resistance, particularly to eyespot.

Despite some poor summer weather, the crops stood well and both varieties produced 9.5-10t/ha.

Mr Ryle also selected two winter barleys, although it was generally a poor year for the crop.

He said: “I wanted to try Retriever, the highest-yielding 2- row variety on the Recommended List, and it came to the combine well this harvest.

There wasn’t as much straw as I would have liked for the farm’s livestock, but it was early to harvest and I’ll drill it again because of that.”

Spectrum, was chosen for its stiff-straw and ‘9’ rating for standing power.

“All muck and straw goes back into the farm because I’m a firm believer in the fact that organic matter, or lack of it, is the limiting factor in yields,” said Mr Ryle.

He also chose Westminster, the spring feed barley, to fill the gaps left by un-drilled crops last autumn.

Mr Ryle had used FYM on the land, with grass as a break crop, and Westminster yielded up to 8.3t/ha.

“Heavily-mucked land makes a difference and Westminster was a star performer, producing double the amount of straw compared with winter barley,” said Mr Ryle.

“We’ll hold on to our spring barley acreage for next season in selected fields as the variety has done so well. Spring barley reduces our input costs as well as providing an opportunity to clear up bromeaffected fields.

“It just goes to show that sometimes when the weather forces your hand to try a completely different crop, in this case spring barley, you can get fantastic results."