Cereals 2025: Wheat growers given alert for yellow rust next season – Farmers Weekly
Winter wheat growers are being urged to be vigilant about yellow rust next season ...
Winter wheat growers are being urged to be vigilant about yellow rust next season and be prepared to use an early spring fungicide after a new race of the disease has overcome a key Yr15 resistance gene.
Many leading hard-milling Group 4 feed wheat varieties have been affected by the new race, in an area down the East Coast from Scotland to The Wash, meaning a wholesale switch to different varieties is not realistic this autumn.
Three leading varieties Dawsum, Champion and Typhoon have the Yr15 gene and have seen an increased level of yellow rust this season, said the AHDB, while other varieties such as Beowulf have also been affected.
Fungicide control of yellow rust tends to be cheaper and easier than septoria, and so growers are being advised that they may have to use a rust-active treatment at or before the T0 stage next spring.
Fungicide control
Andrew Wright, regional director in the Midlands for agronomy group Hutchinsons, says yellow rust can be more easily controlled than septoria with fungicides, but growers should be alert to the increased threat.
Yellow rust can be controlled relatively cheaply by the azole tebuconazole at £7/ha, which gives good knock down control for 7 days, while a tebuconazole + strobilurin mix is more expensive at £12/ha but will give more persistence for up to 14 days.
“The key is early control. Growers should go early and don’t let yellow rust get established,” he says.
This could mean a T0 spray in late March, or even earlier if yellow rust is seen in a wheat crop.
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