United Kingdom
September 3, 2025
Despite a season of prolonged drought and challenging yellow rust conditions, Brett Askew finds LG Typhoon delivers reliable yields and flexibility for early drilling.
Having grown LG Typhoon for several years, he has been pleased with its performance and plans to continue growing it this coming season.
Based at Grange Farm, Kibblesworth near Newcastle, Mr Askew likes to drill early to get ahead of changeable weather conditions, which is a key reason LG Typhoon is such a good fit on his farm. The 81ha he planted for Harvest 2025 has done well despite a challenging season, proving itself a mainstay variety for him.
Brett Askew
Mr Askew’s first 40ha block of LG Typhoon was drilled on 2nd September, while the later block was planted between 25th-30th September. Usually, he would use a Claydon TerraStar to chop the surface tilth ahead of drilling however, last autumn was so wet that he ploughed everything.
“The earlier block of LG Typhoon went in behind a failed oilseed rape crop which we had not redrilled, so it was ploughed, pressed and planted with our Claydon drill. We then broke off to harvest our spring crops, but two weeks of heavy rain meant we could not press the second block and therefore decided to plant it with a combination drill which we could not roll – so that was not ideal.”
His earlier drilled crop was able to establish a better root, allowing it to access the nutrients it needed, which he believes helped it to resist the challenge diseases, particularly from yellow rust, this season.
“The earlier LG Typhoon had more biomass going into winter and the larger plants showed very little signs of yellow rust.
Over the past few years Mr Askew has not applied a T0 because LG Typhoon has often grown away from yellow rust however, this season it was clear an early fungicide was necessary. “You can’t mess around with disease and need to keep on top of it, but an early application of tebuconazole was all that was necessary to control it and we didn’t see any yellow rust after that.”
At T1 he applied Vimoy (isoflucypram), Kestrel (prothioconazole + tebuconazole) and folpet, followed by a reduced rate of Miravis Plus (pydiflumetofen) at T2 due to the dry conditions. “The aim was to retain the green leaf as long as possible, but the heat and dryness had an impact.”
Mr Askew applied nutrition, including liquid N and food waste digestate, on some fields to give the crops a boost, with 210kgN/ha applied in total.
With almost no rain between February and June, yields on the farm have taken a hit. “On average it’ll be a poor harvest,” says Mr Askew. “Typically we have achieved 8.2-8.7t/ha over the past five years; this year our LG Typhoon averaged 8-8.5t/ha, with fields varying from 6-11t/ha however, specific weights have been sky high, with the variety achieving over 80kg/hl.”
One element of LG Typhoon that Mr Askew has been really pleased with is that even during a wet year he does not have to chase it, having found it to be very clean. “Alongside its position in the early drilling slot, this is why I have 15t ready to plant for the coming season, which will go in right after oilseed rape and oats. Sometimes we do not have the spray days, or our spray contractor cannot get to us when we need him, so not having to chase the variety is really important.
“The consistent performance of LG Typhoon over the past few years, even when it has had less than ideal conditions or we have had to be flexible with drilling date is why I will continue to grow it,” he concludes.
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