“ There was only a difference in a tonne between our first and second wheat yields from Evolution - both of which were higher than average for the season in this area , and if we had had more sunlight later in the summer , we could easily have been looking at yields such as those in 2015 ,” he says .

“ The only downside was our second wheats had a lower bushel weight of 72-74 kg / hl , whereas with the first wheats it was up to 76 kg / hl .”

“ Our focus here is to grow the biggest heap of grain we can get ; milling wheats don ’ t do well on these silty loam soils , so we are always looking to push yields .”

On the basis of looking for ways to improve farm productivity , Mr Hinchliffe first began experimenting with no-till back in 2012 , and now the whole farm is

under a no-till system . “ We gave up ploughing about 16 years ago , and went to a min-till system and this seemed to work well . However we thought we could go even further and decided to try one field out under a no-till system with a new John Deere direct drill that we had just bought .”

“ We started to see the benefits of no-till straight away as the ‘ tester ’ field soon turned out to be our best field .”

He highlights benefits such as ; improved water penetration , increased worm numbers and better rooting . “ All of which it make it much easier to manage the soils .”

“ Moisture retention is much improved now and we are certainly seeing a much slower release of nitrogen in the soil , which I think gives us the equivalent of an extra week ’ s grain fill .”

“ We still subsoil where needed , mostly on the heavier magnesium clays – at the end of the day we have to take a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic approach ,” he points out .

“ With very little black-grass to contend with , wheats can go in early . “ Last year we decided to grow Evolution as both a first and

second wheat and drilled it from mid-Sept to early October , with the cleanest fields being drilled first .”

“ Being able to drill earlier does mean that we can push yields that little bit more .”

“ Our soils are a high pH of around 8 , so we don ’ t have issues with take-all , which means that we can drill second wheats without too many concerns .”

“ We use a higher seed rate for the second wheats ; up from 350 seeds / m ² to 400 seeds / m ². My theory is that it is better to have a plant to manage than no plant at all and the high rate helps to counteract against slugs , which is one downside of the no-till approach .”

Richard Hinchliffe does all of his own agronomy . Septoria tritici and yellow rust are the main disease targets for his fungicide programme , with broad leaved weeds such as cleavers being a target in the spring .

Most of the wheats grown at Rawcliffe Bridge Farm are hard Group 4 ’ s , with the exception of a small area of Belepi , Viscount and LG Motown .

This autumn Evolution will be the biggest variety grown on the farm , both as a second and first wheat , based on its performance

this year . Costello will also be grown for the third year running . However Viscount , long time farm stalwart has started to drop away in yields , so Mr Hinchliffe will be trialling LG Motown as a replacement .

Evolution has performed very well in both the first and second wheat situations in Limagrain UK ’ s internal and external independent trials . “ Evolution appears to be more robust in dealing with take-all ; probably an attribute of the variety originally being bred in Denmark and selected in second wheat nurseries which is a very testing environment ,” says the breeder ’ s technical manager , Ron Granger . “ The variety appears to perform better in a second wheat slot than as a first wheat . On the AHDB Recommended List for 2017 / 18 , as a first wheat , Evolution yields 102 % but move it into a second wheat slot and its performance jumps up to 103 %.”