His determination has paid off with the numbers and now he’s just waiting to see if Guinness World Records will ratify the result. Word from the United Kingdom-based group was expected any time.
The January 23 harvest produced a yield of 13.8 tonnes a hectare from the 11.5ha block of land on the coastal Poplar Grove Farm.
About the same time last year, after brought in an 11.5t/ha yield, Canterbury Seed Co sales and marketing manager Craig Noonan said he was sure the world record was not much higher than that.
They checked and found that a crop on the Scottish borders had measured 12.2t/ha in 1989.
“I decided then to give it a go,” Darling said.
“I was sure we could do it with better management, though we didn’t change a lot. The fungicide and nitrogen inputs stayed about the same but we followed the agronomy notes to the letter.”
He started with a winter crop barley seed, brand name 776, developed for NZ conditions by UK agronomist John Blackman.
It was supported by farms soils built up to very good quality and perfect climatic growing conditions.
The autumn sown seed had a wet winter to set the crop up. Fine conditions and cool nights through November and early December maximised the grain-fill, leading on to this summer’s high sunshine hours boosting the maturity.
Darling always knew the crop was a good one.
Samples were taken six weeks and two weeks before harvest and showed “we were well on the way”.
On the day of harvest, the field was surveyed, and a Justice of the Peace was on hand as independent observer who verified the weights. Samples were then sent to AssureQuality for independent testing before being sent on to Guinness World Records.
The Guinness requirements were very exacting and the process took time, quite apart from the 10 months the crop spent in the ground. The attempt had to be registered with Guinness several months before harvest.
Despite the nervous wait for ratification, Darling said the satisfaction of achieving a world record crop was incredible and he was delighted for South Canterbury being recognised on the global stage for growing world record crops.
At this stage, he was not planning to chase any yield records this year but might look for honours with other crops at some stage. He grows wheat and barley and used oil seed rape as a break crop.
The hot, dry summer in South Canterbury allowed him to finish his summer harvest about three weeks earlier than usual, and he’s already started preparations for resowing.
Noonan, who was on hand for the record harvest, said a good NZ yield for winter barley was above 10t/ha and the 776 brand would outperform other seed. Spring sown barley produced between 6t and 9t/ha.
The 13.8t/ha harvest at Poplar Grove “means an awful lot to showcase NZ’s agriculture industry”.
Darling’s barley harvest will go into food manufacturing.
