Saaten Union and Elsoms Seeds’ new hybrid rye varieties performed excellent in field trial

Saaten Union and Elsoms Seeds’ hybrid rye varieties, SU PERFORMER, SU COSSANI, SU SANTINI and SU DRIVE were amongst varieties tested in independent German trials, in Elsoms trials across the UK and in individual farmer reports. Recently Elsoms announced the results from these 3 different sources which demonstrate that these hybrid rye varieties offer the best performance consistency, even in a difficult year. Independent trials, Elsoms trials and farmer reports show:

• SU PERFORMER has the highest potential yield of any variety in the UK and European marketplace
• SU COSSANI has exceptional all round disease resistance
• SU SANTINI will outperform other varieties in harsh, drought prone, dry conditions

Saaten Union, backed up by innovative breeding research from Hybro, now have 53% market share in the Hybrid rye market in Germany, who are largest hybrid rye producer in the world in 2014-2015. This is testement to the specialist innovative plant breeding and outstanding portfolio of genetics that Saaten Union have been developing over the last few years. What's more, the standard is raised still further each year with the addition of new Saaten Union varieties onto the Descriptive List.

Elsoms Energy Crop Manager, Heather Ayre, and Dr Richard Jennaway, Saaten Union's UK Technical Director, work closely with Saaten Union's Bio Energy Division to ensure that the best varieties are selected for the UK. The hybrid rye breeding programme incorporates Turbo Technology, a successful technique that reduces ergot contamination without compromising yield, and this has helped significantly in the breeding of the superb varieties that we are now able to offer in the UK.

Benefits of using Saaten Union and Elsoms Seeds’ hybrid rye:

• Impressive performance in all areas of the UK whilst maize can only be successfully grown in limited areas
• Excellent crop for drought-prone or lighter soils due to the deep root sytem
• Hybrid rye is a low input/high output crop
• Significant improvement in performance of AD Plants when Hybrid rye and energy beet are included in the energy crop programme
• Easily established in late Autumn and harvested in June leaving time to prepare land for the following crop
• The early summer harvest allows time for a catch crop or even for double cropping
• The long growing period and early summer harvest avoid variablity in yield and quality that can cause problems in shorter maize growing periods