A crop of ‘Einstein’ winter wheat, a variety which was bred in the UK by Nickerson, has achieved a new world wheat record for New Zealand farmer Mike Solari. The crop, which was harvested in March, yielded 15.637 tonnes per hectare, beating the previous world record of 15.36 t/ha set by Mr Solari three years ago with a crop of Savannah, another Nickerson variety.

Sixty-eight-year-old Mr Solari, who with his wife Margaret farms at Gore on New Zealand’s South Island, attributes his success to a combination of factors, including the high yield potential of this very successful variety, the inherent productivity of the farm’s heavy river-silt soils, good farming techniques and the favourable climate which provides sufficient rain and sunshine to create a long, slow grain-fill period. Mr Solari, who worked closely with PGG Wrightson, New Zealand’s largest and only nationwide provider to the agricultural sector, says that his achievements are part of a real team effort.

The highest yielding fully-recommended nabim Group 2 winter wheat on the HGCA Recommended List, Einstein has performed extremely well across a range of situations. Ideally suited as a first-wheat, it has also produced excellent results when grown in a second- or continuous -wheat situation and is suitable for late drilling up until the end of January. Producing good-quality grain which is suitable for domestic bread production as well as the export bread and blended-flour markets, Einstein has good all-round disease resistance and is suitable for organic production.

Commenting on the world record Lee Robinson, Director of Marketing – Arable Seeds, Limagrain UK, stated: “This tremendous achievement underlines Einstein’s ability to achieve excellent results under a wide range of farming conditions. With grain prices volatile and farm incomes under pressure the adage ‘grow for the market’ has never been more relevant.

“Einstein, together with its even higher-yielding successor Panorama, enables farmers to meet the requirements of both the domestic and export markets. The export sector still offers tremendous potential for the UK agricultural industry and there is huge potential to supply the overseas market for bread making wheat, which accounts for more than half of the potential export tonnage yet remains virtually untapped.”