KWS Dawsum | Everything I want in a Wheat Variety

The harvest of 2023 will be one that many people will want to put behind them, weather made it a battle to plant crops and a battle to harvest them. We must be thankful that 2022 was exceptionally good, and we hope that this will be a help from both a financial and morale point of view.

Along with my role within Goldcrop, I farm a 230ac mixed tillage rotation consisting mainly of broad leaf break crops, winter wheat and some spring barley. Our system of farming has evolved to one that uses the break crops to create as much first cereal land as possible. This first cereal land is almost exclusively planted with winter wheat. Why winter wheat? Over the years, I have found winter wheat to be consistently the best-performing crop financially – it has the potential to produce a high yield and the ability to deal with difficult conditions (heavier textured soils, wet winters etc).

Looking forward, I think that if we are indeed entering into an era of more fluctuation in terms of weather and grain prices, then winter wheat may well be an even more important crop in Ireland due to its ability to survive wet winters and take advantage of high grain prices when they do occur.

Dawsum has been Awesome for us…

With 20 years spent in variety testing at Goldcrop, I have seen many wheat varieties come and go. In my inexperienced early years, my head was easily turned by the soft, impressive-looking wheats that promised massive yields, but I quickly learnt just how disappointing such varieties can be in a wet harvest where problems such as sprouting, Fusarium, lodging, and even shedding quickly rob that yield potential. As they say: “good looks don’t boil the pot”…..

When KWS Dawsum came along, I quickly moved to it as it had the traits that I see as valuable in a wheat variety:

• High & Reliable Yield Potential
• High KPH grain with excellent resistance to sprouting & shedding
• Good straw strength
• Suitable as a second wheat

In 2022, we grew 89 acres of KWS Dawsum (45% first crop, 55% second crop), the average yield was exactly 5tn/ac (adjusted to 20%mc). 2022 as we know was a dream year where our fields had no blank patches and with the exception of BYDV, our wheat crops had a smooth run.

For 2023, we grew 61 acres of KWS Dawsum (all first crop). The year was the polar opposite to 2022 in terms of getting crops established. One poorly drained 9ac field was sown in October, and the balance of the wheat was sown in the first week of December. Despite all the challenges thrown at the wheat, our average yield of Dawsum came in at 4.5tn/ac (adjusted to 20%mc).

Growing KWS Dawsum

From an agronomic point of view, I have become quite familiar with growing KWS Dawsum. Whilst it is taller than its predecessor Costello, it has good resistance to lodging (7/9) and lodging prevention hasn’t been complicated. My normal approach is a mix of CCC & Moddus at GS30. In most years, I follow this with a later application of Medax Max as I find this gives good shortening without being too hard on the crop.

In terms of disease control, we farm in Cork, so Septoria control is going to be a top priority – sowing date, full rates of fungicide, and accurate application timing are our main tools.

Dawsum has superb resistance to both Mildew (8/9) and Yellow Rust (8/9) so thankfully, I don’t need to give much thought to these diseases when growing Dawsum. Yellow Rust in particular, has become more common in Ireland in recent years, and I always find it comforting to know that when I leave the field with the sprayer I won’t have to come back just to target Yellow Rust.

So, to sum up – KWS Dawsum provides us with what we want – a winter wheat variety that can deliver high yields with minimum risk.

For harvest 2024, we have 84ac after-break crops to be planted with winter wheat. It will be planted to one variety. Which variety? I’ll let you guess………

Article by John Dunne, Goldcrop Ltd.