Raising the bar in clubroot resistance

Raising the bar in clubroot resistant varieties this season, every trial in which the latest Dekalb hybrid with the trait has gone head-to-head with the top-performing clubroot variety on the Recommended List has shown a considerable yield advantage for the newcomer. So far, DK Pledge has been tested in replicated trials by NIAB at sites in Cambridgeshire and Herefordshire and by Scottish Agronomy in Fife. Alongside these, it has been grown on a field scale in strip trials on a Shropshire farm with particular clubroot concerns.

Across the three replicated trials, the new hybrid has out-yielded the top RL clubroot performer by between 3% and 10%, averaging 3.96t/ha against 3.71t/ha. What’s more, this average replicated plot superiority of just under 7% is very close to the 6% advantage apparent in the field-scale work (Figure).

Figure: Clubroot variety replicated trial performance 2022/23

“As well as it’s all-round strength of disease resistance and standing power, one of the major advantages our latest clubroot breeding has over its competitors is proven Dekalb pod shatter resistance,” points out Bayer seed campaign manager, Grace Hayward. “This has been evident visually as well as in the yield results following the summer storms that swept across much of the country ahead of this season’s harvest. “We are building on the strength of DK Pledge with a TuYV and clubroot-resistant hybrid  now going into NL2 for which we have even higher hopes,” she notes. “Yields of both these varieties are right up there with mainstream double lows too, making them especially attractive options for all those with any clubroot concerns.”