Crop Variety – How Do I Choose Between Varieties?

LEVEL 3 CROP TECHNICIAN • SELF-STUDY

🌾 How do I choose between varieties?

You are the Crop Technician. Your job is not to find the “best” variety — it is to use evidence to find the variety that is the best fit for the farm.

👀 Look 1 of 7

👀

LOOK — What can you see?

Start by hunting for information. Don’t worry about understanding everything yet.

Start here: Open the current AHDB Recommended Lists ↗
Find examples of yield, disease resistance, maturity, lodging, quality and market/use.

Find THREE things in the table that could help a farmer choose a variety.

What I found	What does it tell the farmer?

Why might the variety with the highest yield NOT automatically be the best choice?

🤔

THINK — What matters on your farm?

There is no single “best” variety for every farm.

Rank these from 1 = most important to 6 = least important for your farm.

Factor	Your rank	Why?
🛒 Market / quality
📈 Yield
🦠 Disease resistance
📅 Maturity
🌾 Lodging resistance
🚜 Fit with the farm

Would your top three be the same on every farm?

📖

LEARN — Read the evidence

Use the Agriculture-4-U page and the live AHDB Recommended Lists linked below.

🌐 YOUR LIVE EVIDENCE SOURCE
Everything you need to complete this activity is online. You do not need a table supplied by your tutor.

Open AHDB Recommended Lists 2026/27 ↗ Open AHDB Variety Selection Tools ↗ Open AHDB Winter Wheat Selection Tool ↗ Agriculture-4-U — Plant Varieties ↗

AHDB’s current digital tools use RL 2026/27 data. Use the live information rather than an old screenshot or saved table.

📈 Yield % of controlWhat does a figure above 100 tell you?

🦠 Disease ratingWhat does a higher resistance rating generally suggest?

📅 MaturityWhy can maturity matter to the farm?

🛒 Quality / marketWhy does the intended market matter?

Yield % of control — what does it tell you?Disease rating — what does a higher resistance rating generally suggest?Maturity — why might it matter?Quality / market — why does the intended market matter?

Key idea: The figures are the evidence. The farmer still has to decide what that evidence means for their farm.

🌐

EXPLORE — Variety Detective

Use the current AHDB online information to investigate three varieties of your choice.

🌾 Your task — choose the varieties yourself
Go to the live AHDB Recommended Lists or Variety Selection Tool. Choose THREE varieties for a crop you are interested in and investigate them.

Do not simply look for the variety with the highest yield. You are looking for the best overall fit.

Your crop	Variety 1	Variety 2	Variety 3

🔎 Challenge 1 — Market

Which variety would you choose for a particular market?

🦠 Challenge 2 — Disease

Which variety has the strongest disease-resistance profile?

📅 Challenge 3 — Harvest

Which variety could help a farm spread its harvest workload?

Level 3 challenge: Do not just name a variety. Use the data to explain your recommendation.

🧠

MAKE THE RECOMMENDATION

You are now the Crop Technician.

The farmer asks: “Which of these three varieties would you grow?”

My reason	Evidence from the variety information
1.
2.
3.

My recommendation:

Complete the fields above to build your recommendation.

🚜

WORKPLACE — Ask the farmer

Find out how varieties are actually chosen on your farm.

Ask your farmer, manager, agronomist or crop supervisor:
“Which varieties do we grow and why were they chosen?”

Crop	Variety	Market / use	Important characteristic	Why was it chosen?

Would the farmer choose the same variety again?

Yes

Not sure

Why?

Livestock Technician option: What crop varieties are grown for livestock feed, forage or bedding — and why were those varieties chosen?

🔎 Professional habit: Variety information changes. Before making a real farm recommendation, check the current AHDB Recommended List and speak to the relevant merchant, buyer or agronomist about market requirements.

🧠

DECIDE — Choose the best overall fit

Think like the person responsible for the field.

🛒 MARKETWhat does the buyer want?

🚜 FARMDoes it suit the farm?

🛡️ RISKWhat could go wrong?

📈 PERFORMANCEWhat does the evidence show?

📅 WORKLOADWhen will it mature / harvest?

🌾 Final decision

Which variety would you choose? 🛒 MARKET — What does the buyer want?🚜 FARM — Does it suit the farm?🛡️ RISK — What could go wrong?📈 PERFORMANCE — What evidence supports your choice?📅 WORKLOAD — When will it mature / harvest?

⭐ Level 3 extension

A variety has the highest yield, but another has better disease resistance and matures earlier.

Which would you choose — and why?

🌾 Session complete

Good work. You have moved from finding variety information to using current evidence to make a farm-specific decision.

Remember: there is no single “best” variety. The best variety is the one that gives the farm the best overall fit.

Your answers are held in this page while it is open. They are not uploaded or stored anywhere by this activity.