THREE years of maize trials at Askham Bryan College, near York, have shown remarkable production consistency.

The varieties Ballade, Bodyguard and Remington all achieved more than 50t/ha freshweight, with dry matters ranging from 30 to 33 per cent, despite very different weather patterns and harvest dates.

"It’s a real indication of how far levels of management have come on in recent years and a testament to the reliability of modern 'Bred for Britain' varieties," said Wilson Hendry of Grainseed Ltd.

"It also shows what can be achieved in terms of producing yield, digestibility and energy content when varieties are chosen specifically to match individual growing conditions and micro-climates."

The college’s Westfield Farm is in the relatively sheltered Vale of York and has a micro-climate that perfectly suits high-yielding ultra early varieties.

Mr Hendry said: "The target is to hit 50t/ha freshweight with a dry matter of around 30 per cent and starch content of more than 30 per cent so the overall ME is capable of delivering the yields and quality the herd needs without having to buy too much additional feed in."

In 2014, Ballade produced 50.1t/ha freshweight at 31.3 per cent dry matter and 33.7 per cent starch content. In 2015, yield was 51.7t/ha and dry matter 29.7 per cent, and last year's yield was 52.0t/ha at 31.4 per cent dry matter.

Remington yielded 51.7t/ha at 31.3 per cent dry matter in 2014, 53.3t/ha at 32.9 per cent dry matter in 2015 and 50.4t/ha at 33 per cent dry matter last year.

Bodyguard produced the highest yield at 54.9t/ha in 2014, 55.5t/ha in 2015 – both at more than 30 per cent dry matter.

Josh Banks manages the farm on behalf of Velcourt and said management was key with the drilling date particularly important.

He said: "Achieving this type of reliability of production across very different years in terms of weather patterns and heat units, not only gives you a lot of control over your costs by removing the risk of having to buy large quantities of feed in, it also helps considerably with ration planning.

"We’ve had crops drilled one week apart and you can always see a difference throughout the rest of the growing season.

"We like to get crops in the ground in the last week of April if the soil temperature is right but often this stretches to first week of May. We don’t want things backing up in May, so if we can get in at the end of April it often works best for us."

Maize land has FYM spread on at the start of the year followed by a dressing of slurry using an umbilical system with pipes running under the A64 main road to access all parts of the land.

Seedbeds are prepared using a Sumo cultivator and then drilled. No extra fertiliser is applied once the crop is in the ground with all nutrition coming from the FYM and slurry applied before drilling. The crop then requires little management intervention until harvest.

The choice of varieties affects the reliability of the harvest date which is usually the first week of October. The college has just invested in a 3,000 tonne covered clamp with three bays.