Lincolnshire grower Tim Lamyman has broken two world top-yielding grain records with a massive near-18t/ha winter wheat crop, at more than twice the UK average yield, while he has smashed his own record for winter barley with a whopping harvest of 16.21t/ha.

Mr Lamyman’s 17.96t/ha wheat crop topped previous world record holder Eric Watson, who harvested a 17.40t/ha crop in February 2020 on his South Island farm in New Zealand.

Mr Lamyman’s record at harvest 2022 came when UK wheat yields rose sharply despite a record heatwave and a prolonged drought.

See also: Top-yielding new wheat variety is a success on Suffolk farm

The Lincolnshire Wolds grower also broke his own winter barley record with his crop of 16.21t/ha, beating his previous record harvest by a clear 2t/ha compared to his 2021 crop of 14.20t/ha on his fertile, chalky loam soils.

The record-breaking harvests surprised crop experts after such a dry spring, but his crops put down deep roots in a dry autumn, and his chalky soils acted like a sponge to preserve moisture to maintain strong plant growth through the spring and early summer drought.

“As long as we get enough moisture through the winter, a dry season is an advantage to us, and all our winning crops were on north-facing slopes, which allowed them to escape the worst of the heatwave,” he told Farmers Weekly.

Tweaked approach

His high input/high output system came up trumps as he tweaked his approach to add more crop nutrition late in the season to the ears of both his wheat and barley crops to keep them green throughout the summer, which helped push specific weights sharply higher.

The record-breaking wheat and barley crops earned him top gold awards in the annual Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) competition organised by crop consultants Adas, and he achieved a hat-trick of wins with a high-yielding crop of oilseed rape.

Over its 10 years, YEN has looked for record-making yields, but has also tried to understand what is behind top yields.

It has drawn entries from the UK and across northern Europe, while YEN competitions have started in eastern Canada and the Great Lakes region of North America.

Roger Sylvester-Bradley, head of crop performance at Adas and founder of YEN, said potential UK wheat yields ranged up to as high as 24t/ha.

Many crops at harvest 2022 were over 14t/ha, while the average wheat yield of some 200 YEN wheat entrants was 11.3t/ha.

“High yields of 14t/ha are possible almost everywhere as long as the soil holds sufficient water.

Most farmers seem to have increased yields so the crops must have had good rooting systems to cope with the dry weather,” he said.

Prof Sylvester-Bradley admitted they had underestimated how good some of the entrants’ soils were, and how deep the rooting systems had been, with some roots going down more than 2m to find moisture.

These high yields were possible with an adequate soil water supply, a good level of organic matter, soil phosphate, early sowing and low seed rates on narrow rows.

The frequency of applying inputs such as nitrogen was more important than the actual amount, he added.

World wheat yields

Mr Lamyman has tussled with mainly New Zealand growers for world-beating yields over the past decade, while his 2022 wheat triumph gave him three straight YEN wins.

He has now won gold for his wheat crops in seven out the 10 years the competition has been running.

The Lincolnshire grower first broke the world wheat yield record back in 2015 with a yield of 16.50t/ha.

He held it only for a few months before Rod Smith, in Northumberland, harvested a crop of 16.52t/ha on his farm near the Scottish Border, before he himself was pipped by Mr Watson.

The New Zealander, farming near Ashburton on the fertile silty soils of the Canterbury Plain just south-west of Christchurch, took back the record in February 2017 with a yield of 16.79t/ha,.

He then pushed ahead with a new world record crop of 17.40t/ha in February 2020.

Mr Lamyman, as well as the wheat and winter barley prizes, also picked up the top crop prize for oilseed rape at a yield of 8.98t/ha – itself one of the highest yields on record. 

The top spring barley crop came from Hampshire, grown by Simon Budden at 11.02t/ha, with the winning oat crop from John Anderson of Caithness in the far north eastern tip of Scotland, while the best quality milling wheat sample came from Chris Eglington in Norfolk.

Winter wheat

Mr Lamyman’s winning wheat crop was grown on his 600ha farm at Worlaby on the Lincolnshire Wolds, just north of Horncastle, on his free-draining, chalky loam soils.

This was closely followed by neighbour Mark Stubbs with a yield of 16.70t/ha, while third place came from a grower in Denmark.

The new feed wheat variety Champion was chosen by Mr Lamyman, and after previous work using the nitrogen-phosphate-potash foliar feed TipTip on his oilseed rape.

This was used on wheat at the T3 ear wash stage, and he was “blown away” with a very high specific weight of 83.6kg/hl from a variety that can tend to give medium to low values.

Mr Lamyman uses high doses of nitrogen in a range of 310-350kg/ha for his record crops, but due to a dry autumn, and therefore a good level of mineralised nitrogen in the soil, his winning wheat crop received only 314kg/ha.

His total variable costs for seed, fertiliser and sprays was a not-too-excessive £850/ha.

Even using relatively high nitrogen levels, he is getting good nitrogen use efficiency and so argues that this is a more environmentally friendly approach by being efficient and getting such high yields rather than only achieving moderate yields.

His success came when the UK 2022 harvest saw overall wheat yields rise 10% to 8.6t/ha to produce a national crop of 15.54m tonnes – one of the highest on record – and marking a strong recovery from the low point of just below 10m tonnes at harvest 2020.

Best potential wheat yield in the YEN came from Ashley Jones, operating the mixed 190ha Smeaton Farm, near Saltash in eastern Cornwall, where he is a AHDB Monitor Farmer and is a previous YEN winner.

Winter barley 

Mr Lamyman was advised to bring the drilling of his winter barley variety Tardis forward three weeks by agronomy expert David Robinson from advisory group Frontier as the crop followed barley rather than wheat, so there was no threat of wheat volunteers.

The drilling date was 26 September rather than 14 October, and then the same foliar treatment was used on the barley ears as with the wheat.

The result was a massive 16.21t/ha crop – again more than double the national average – and a “wheat type” specific weight of 73.2kg/hl.

The success came in a good year for winter barley with UK national yields up 9% at 7.4t/ha, and with a higher area this saw total production up 17% at 3.2m tonnes

At harvest 2021, Mr Lamyman broke the world record with the same variety yielding 14.2t/ha, topping the old record of 13.8t/ha set by New Zealander Warren Darling.

The silver award went to mixed farmer and AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds sector council member David Bell from East Fife in Scotland.

He produced a 13.40t/ha harvested crop, which also won him the gold award for the best potential winter barley yield.

Spring barley 

Mr Budden won gold for spring barley on his 460ha Netherly Farm, Chalton, just above Portsmouth on the Hampshire Downs.

Early drilling got the variety Laureate off to a good start before the drought kicked in and the crop yielded 11.02t/ha.

The crop was drilling on 28 January, while nitrogen levels were trimmed back to 150kg/ha after the previous year’s 175kg/ha had produced a lush crop that suffered in heavy summer rains.

This nitrogen was applied in two doses when the crop had just emerged.

The crop gained from rain in February and March before the dry weather began, and the high yield diluted the nitrogen content of the malting quality grain down to an amazingly low 1.2%.

“It was so dry we had no need for any plant growth regulators and the crop stayed green with little disease,” said Mr Budden, who won the YEN gold award for milling quality wheat in 2021.

The result reflected higher yields nationally for spring barley, with UK average yields up 9% at 6.2t/ha, although a contraction in the area saw production down 1% at 4.2m tonnes.

The silver award went to Dyson Farming of Lincolnshire with a yield of 10.6t/ha. The business, owned by Britain’s biggest farmer Sir James Dyson, also won gold for the highest potential spring barley yield.

Oilseed rape

Tim Lamyman scooped up gold for his gross output yield of 8.98t/ha for oilseed rape, which would have been a world record but it was only grown across 2ha and world record attempts need to be across at least 8ha.

The current rapeseed record is held by Kent grower Richard Budd with a 7.19t/ha crop harvested in 2019.

Mr Lamyman used a mix of the conventional variety Acacia and hybrid Attica at a reasonably heavy drilling rate of 70 seeds/sq m.

The Attica grew more than 2m in height and the Acacia filled in below to give more than 1m height of pod canopy to harvest.

The mixed-variety approach is used by Mr Lamyman to deter cabbage stem flea beetles, with Attica emerging first and then Acacia, which tends to attract any flea beetles while the Attica grows away.

In the UK, oilseed rape yields at harvest 2022 rose sharply, showing an increase of 16% to 3.7t/ha, and with the first rise in area for a number of years, the national crop rose 39% to 1.36m tonnes.

The silver YEN award went to Lincolnshire neighbour Mr Stubbs with 7.82t/ha, while the best potential yield came from David Passmore on the southern edge of the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire.

YEN award winners from harvest 2022

Best wheat, rye or triticale yield
GOLD: Tim Lamyman of Lincolnshire, supported by Frontier (world record to be confirmed)	17.96t/ha
SILVER: Mark Stubbs of Lincolnshire, sponsored by Hutchinsons	16.70t/ha
BRONZE: Vagn Lundsteen of Zealand, Denmark, independent entry	16.08t/ha

Best % of potential wheat, rye or triticale yield
GOLD: Ashley Jones of Cornwall, sponsored by Limagrain	132% of 11.7t/ha
SILVER: Mark Stubbs of Lincolnshire, sponsored by Hutchinsons	116% of 14.4 t/ha
BRONZE: James Loder-Symonds of Kent, sponsored by Bayer	106% of 12.2 t/ha

Milling wheat protein yield and baking quality awards, sponsored by UK Flour Millers

GOLD: Chris Eglington of Norfolk, sponsored by AHDB

SILVER: Paul Cornwell of Suffolk, independent entry

BRONZE: Richard Budd of Kent, sponsored by BASF

Best cereal yield in trials

GOLD: Richard Budd of Kent, sponsored by BASF                     15.5 t/ha, and 112% of 13.8 t/ha

Best winter barley yield
GOLD: Tim Lamyman of Lincs, supported by Frontier (confirmed world record)	16.21t/ha
SILVER: David Bell of Fife, sponsored by AHDB	13.40t/ha
BRONZE: Will Jones of North Yorkshire, independent entry	11.71t/ha

Best % of potential winter barley yield
GOLD: David Bell of Fife, sponsored by AHDB	117% of 11.5t/ha
SILVER: Anthony Turnbull of Lincolnshire, sponsored by Ilex-Enviroscience	98% of 11.3t/ha
BRONZE: Rory Lay of Shropshire, sponsored by AHDB	96% of 10.1t/ha

Best spring barley yield
GOLD: Simon Budden of Hampshire, independent entry	11.02t/ha
SILVER: Dyson Farming of Lincolnshire, independent entry	10.57t/ha
BRONZE: Thomas Todd of Northumberland, sponsored by Syngenta	10.48t/ha

Best % of potential spring barley yield
GOLD: Dyson Farming of Lincolnshire, independent entry	129% of 8.2t/ha
SILVER: Paul Spink of Norfolk, sponsored by Hutchinsons	113% of 9.1t/ha
BRONZE: René Lornholt of Galten, Denmark, independent entry	92% of 8.5t/ha

Best oats yield
GOLD: John Anderson of Caithness, independent entry	9.4t/ha
SILVER: Annabel Hamilton of Berwickshire, independent entry	9.3t/ha

Best % of potential oats yield
GOLD: Annabel Hamilton of Berwickshire, independent entry	86% of 10.8t/ha
SILVER: John Anderson of Caithness, independent entry	64% of 14.7t/ha

Best oilseed rape yield (gross output)
GOLD: Tim Lamyman of Lincolnshire, supported by Bionature	8.98t/ha
SILVER: Mark Stubbs of Lincolnshire, sponsored by Bayer	7.82t/ha
BRONZE: David Fuller-Shapcott of Roxburghshire, sponsored by Limagrain	7.33t/ha

Best % of potential oilseed rape yield
GOLD: David Passmore of Oxfordshire, supported by KWS	96% of 7.0t/ha
SILVER: Mark Lawson of Wigtownshire, sponsored by Limagrain	84% of 7.4t/ha
BRONZE: Tim Lamyman of Lincolnshire, supported by Bionature	83% of 10.8t/ha

YEN Innovator of the year award

Russ McKenzie of DJ Tebbit, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, for his commitment, innovative ideas, and use of trails and analysts for yield enhancement

Ten-year cereal YEN results
Year	Winning grower	Yield (t/ha)	Variety	YEN average wheat yield (t/ha)
2013	Mark Means, Norfolk	13.6	Cordiale	10.8
2014	Tim Lamyman, Lincolnshire	15.0	Kielder	12.0
2015	Tim Lamyman	16.5	Reflection	12.7
2016	Shaun Watson, Northumberland	13.0	Reflection	10.3
2017	Tim Lamyman	15.7	Zyatt	11.0
2018	Tim Lamyman	16.2	Marston	10.2
2019	Mark Stubbs, Lincolnshire	16.3	Siskin	11.3
2020	Tim Lamyman	15.6	Colosseum	10.3
2021	Tim Lamyman	15.6	Colosseum	10.8
2022	Tim Lamyman	17.96	Champion	11.3