DEKALB varieties double top in official Irish trials
Posted 6 years ago
18/08/2020
DK Expansion and DK Exstar are sharing the honours at the top of this year’s 25-variety Irish National List/Recommended List trials, according to provisional results from DAFM testing.
Both varieties delivered an average treated seed yield of over 6.12 t/ha across the four trial sites, putting them at 109% of the 5.62 control mean. As such, they comfortably out-performed all but one of the TuYV resistant varieties in the programme.
DK Expansion’s overall performance and consistency across the sites confirms the promise it has show in two previous years of official trials, in both of which it was the only variety to yield in excess of 110% of the controls.
Of the seven varieties with the three or more years of trial performance DAFM consider vital to give a meaningful assessment of true genetic merit, this year’s results put DK Expansion fully 5% ahead of the next highest-yielding variety and 8% or more above the rest.
Although, as yet, only with a single year of data, DK Exstar’s equally prominent showing in the programme underlines the marked extent to which the best modern hybrid breeding is raising the yield bar in Ireland.