The first Mains of Loirston Winter Wheat Challenge Cup was presented at AgriScot to a team of four, first-year BSc agri students from the Aberdeen campus of Scotland’s Rural College.
Hamish Knottenbelt of Aberlady, James McKerrow of Freuchie, Alistair McBain of Glenbervie and Daniel Fleming of Broughty Ferry made the largest gross margin on their crop of Horatio, soft distilling wheat, grown on three replicated sites in Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Midlothian.
In all, 19 teams of growers aged under 25 entered the competition.
The season started with very wet conditions at sowing time, but the dry summer meant diseases were not a major issue in this year’s crop.
The teams decided which winter wheat variety to grow, the seed rate and various fertiliser and pesticide treatments.
The Perthshire and Midlothian plots went in on October 9 and 10, with the Aberdeenshire plot delayed until October 25 due to wet conditions.
The plots were sown and looked after by members of the SRUC crop trials team.
The winning students received their medals and a perpetual trophy from John Rhind, representing the Mains of Loirston Trust.
The trust was established in 2007 by north-east farmer the late Alexander W Allan, who had a keen interest in advancing agricultural education.
Since its establishment in 2007 the trust has given out more than £100,000 in grants and awards for the furtherance of education in agriculture in Scotland and has more than £250,000 available for new projects.
Placed second in the Winter Wheat Challenge was a four-man team from SRUC’s Edinburgh campus who had chosen Solstice milling wheat as their variety.
While the crop responded well to the better summer of 2013 it required some £518/ha in inputs compared with the £310/ha spent by the winning team.
From the winning team James McKerrow said: “The competition was all about gross margins so we decided to keep our costs down. As the season was favourable we got away with not applying a fungicide. We would not recommend this for a commercial crop, though.”
The team are defending their title and this year have decided to grow Viscount.
Scott Murray, SRUC lecturer in agriculture and business management, said: “The winning team’s yield was 11% lower than the highest yielding team, yet their lower costs led to the highest gross margin of £974/ha.”
The team had an average yield of 7.8 tonnes/ha.
In second were Alistair Nisbet, Bathgate; Douglas Pate, Haddington; Callum Paterson, Castle Douglas; and Zach Reilly, Castle Douglas.
In third equal place were Andrew Ross of Achnasheen, Andrew Sargison of Penicuik, Michael Scott of Haddington, Colin Taylor of Lanark, Jenna Thomson of Stirling; and Iain Wilson of Cupar, Matthew Waldie of Cupar, David Laird of Thornton, Michael Quinn of Kirkcaldy, and Donald Paterson of Cupar,