Growers looking for a WOSR variety with resilience against verticillium stem stripe should consider DK Excentric, suggests breeder Dekalb.
With ADAS reporting a high incidence and severity of verticillium stem stripe this season, particularly in the eastern counties, trials have once again highlighted DK Excentric’s strong tolerance to the disease.
This season, trials conducted under field conditions on a site where high levels of verticillium had previously been reported, DK Excentric topped yields across test varieties, delivering 3.80 t/ha.
ADAS trials conducted between 2023 and 2025 saw DK Excentric achieve a mean verticillium index score of 37.0 (where 0 is no disease and 100 is all plants dead), compared to 35.6 in the resistant standard and 74.8 in the susceptible standard.
Further field-scale trials, which form part of Bayer’s National Hybrid Proving Programme, have also shown good results.
Last season, yields have been particularly strong in the West at 6.76t/ha in Worcestershire and 6.21t/ha in Shropshire. DK Excentric, which is noted for its resilience on challenging sites, has also had a good showing further north, yielding 5.29t/ha in Staffordshire and 5.89t/ha at Coldstream in the Scottish Borders.
“With the oilseed rape harvest a good 10 days ahead of last year, yields have been very impressive,” says Bayer trials manager Richard Williams. “DK Excentric has been a top yielder this harvest and is putting in the kind of strong performance we are coming to expect from this very robust and highly flexible variety.”
