Specialist grass seed breeder Barenbrug has established a third agricultural trial site at Cropvale in Worcestershire.

Specialist grass seed breeder Barenbrug has established a third agricultural trial site at Cropvale in Worcestershire.

Together with its Scottish and Northern Ireland counterparts in Aberdeen and Loughall, Barenbrug believes that the Cropvale site will strengthen its ability to produce new and innovative cultivars specific to UK conditions as well as respond to market and climatic requirements up to five years earlier than at present.

The 15-acre site, which is situated on a working farm, has been sown with 91 varieties, importantly including those that Barenbrug has identified as of interest to future market requirements as well as those on the Recommended List. This allows for a more flexible approach to the trials process, with Barenbrug able to add and subtract varieties according to even slight changes in order to get seed to market quicker.

Barenbrug’s forage product manager, David Long, says of this latest investment in the company’s industry-leading trials programme: “As well as furthering our understanding of effective grass seed blending and speeding up the time it takes to get a new product to market, Cropvale will also allow us to trial international breeding materials and minor species that aren’t – yet – a major part of UK agriculture.

“We are selecting the best materials from countries spanning France, Finland, the Czech Republic and New Zealand for trial and also looking at smaller species such as cocksfoot and tall fescues, which perform well in drought. By trialling these materials, Barenbrug is uniquely able to generate UK information on species that could meet the climate change or low-input requirements of the future.”

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