Blending of wheat for Resilience, Improved Distilling quality and Greater Environmental Stability (BRIDGES)

Mixtures of cereal varieties have shown benefits for controlling disease, increasing yield and improving stability across sites and seasons, particularly for winter barley. Preliminary investigations also suggested that both grain and alcohol yield may be improved in soft winter wheat varieties for distilling. This market is much less concerned with varietal purity than is spring barley for malting. This project aimed to determine whether the same benefits of mixtures could be obtained using current Recommended List varieties of wheat from nabim Groups 3 and 4. Wheat varieties were grown in monocultures, or two- and four-way mixtures, over four sites with full and reduced fungicide treatments. At one of the sites, more varieties and mixtures were included and trials were grown at two nitrogen rates. Yield, thousand grain weight and predicted spirit yields were determined and stability across sites was analysed.