More than a quarter of a century of cutting edge world wheat record-holding experience was brought together by agronomy company, Agrii, at Cereals, last week.

Four world record holders, including the current ‘champion’ compared notes and launched a plan to push performance beyond the 17 tonnes per ha mark.

Newly-crowned Guinness World Record holder, with his 16.79t/ha crop of Oakley, Eric Watson, from South Island, New Zealand, came face-to-face with Northumberland grower, Rod Smith, of Beal, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, who recaptured the record from the Kiwis in 2015 with 16.52 tonne per ha from his Master Seeds crop of Dickens.

They were joined by brothers, Gordon and Jim Rennie, from Clifton Mains, in Midlothian, whose 13.99 tonnes per ha record from a blend of Mardler, Maris Hobbit and Maris Hustler stood for 23 years from 1981.

Providing extra expertise on the day were Agrii agronomist, Andrew Wallace, who worked with Rod to smash the previous 15.64 tonnes per ha record held by Mike Solari, from Oamaru, in New Zealand, and wheat guru, Bill Angus, who is responsible for breeding the Einstein which did it.

With both recent record holders seeing combine yield meters hit high spots comfortably over 20 t/ha in places, there was widespread agreement that whole-field yields of 17.5 tonne per ha is within reach.

That could be especially so from the British perspective, with Rod Smith working at 36m tramlines against the 48m system employed by Eric Watson and, arguably, having more room for improvement through the greater use of precision technology.

“Although moving to wider tramlines would undoubtedly help, 36m is a realistic maximum for us at Beal given the number of telegraph poles we have to contend with,” pointed out Rod.

“Making as much use of variable rate sowing and fertilising as Eric has been doing for many years is, however, something Andrew and I are actively working on, having had the whole farm SoilQuest scanned.

“While we don’t have Eric’s option of irrigation, we generally don’t have the need either. And we’re fortunate in having a longer growing season, although this has its own challenges. We definitely see room for improvement in a number of areas of our management.”

“We’re obviously disappointed to see the record go back to New Zealand,” reflected Jim Rennie, who runs Agrii’s northern region. “Even so, over the past 40 years we’ve still held it here in Britain for more than double the time it’s been down under.

“That makes us determined to bring the Guinness crown back to where it belongs just as soon as we can!” joked Mr Rennie.