SY Nairn is one of the most exciting wheats which has come to market in recent years fitting the important drilling position of a short, still early drilled wheat, with exceptional disease resistance, strong spring vigour, good grain quality, OWBM resistance and end market demand.
SY Nairn, bred by Syngenta, is from a cross between Graham and LG Skyscraper and exhibits traits from both parents, along with some surprising extras that make this variety a most interesting and exciting addition to the Agrovista portfolio.
Surprisingly for a Skyscraper cross, SY Nairn is both short and stiff. In fact, it was the shortest winter wheat in this years AHDB trials at 74cm when treated with plant growth regulator and 85cm untreated. Naturally those heights are matched by very stiff straw making SY Nairn ideally suited to fertile ground or early drilling situations.
SY Nairn has an interesting growth habit – quick to establish, with superb autumn vigour, but slowing down through stem extension, reaching maturity at + 1 days to control.
Luke Palmer at Stretham, Cambridgeshire is growing SY Nairn for the second time this year and highlighted the speed of establishment during his morning crop walks back in November following an unusually dry period through October when the crop was drilled.
SY Nairn has a prostrate growth habit with vigorous leaf growth.
Our technical team continue to assess variety development through to spring and recent assessments at our Dennington site in Suffolk in plots drilled 26 September 2025 highlight SY Nairns growth habit.
Initially not quite as quick as such varieties as KWS Extase, but its rate of growth through early and mid-March has been well ahead.
Buy back grain contracts available
Short, stiff early-drilling soft feed wheat with high specific weight and distilling capability
Good autumn vigour, with prostrate growth habit
Strong adult yellow rust resistance 2025 and robust defence against mildew, septoria tritici and fusarium ear blight
Suited to fertile and early drilling situations
OWBM resistant
Disease resistance
The parental pedigree of SY Nairn offers scarce European genetics from Graham-essential to bring diversity into an otherwise narrow gene pool of UK pathogen resistance.
There are whispers of potential brilliance from its other parent Skyscraper, a significant variety for yield and soft endosperm end use opportunity. Skyscraper itself has a rich heritage born out of Santiago and even Claire for soft quality and Wizard from which SY Nairn’s short and stiff straw may be derived.
SY Nairn has an 8 for adult yellow rust resistance, though like the majority it is seedling susceptible. It has a good level of mid-range resistance to mildew, fusarium and septoria tritici representative of multi-gene defence rather than one risky dominant gene. Growers will need to protect against brown rust though where conditions favour this disease. SY Nairn is orange wheat blossom midge resistant.
One of the principal markets anticipated for SY Nairn will be in the northern half of the UK where soft feed types have opportunity in distilling and biofuel. SY Nairn’s rapid establishment has drawn keen interest this season here too with early adopter crops proving popular with growers and agronomists alike.
Agrovista Area Sales Manager Pete Richardson was lucky to get some SY Nairn sown near Prestwick, Southern Ayrshire this autumn. “I’m very pleased with the look of the SY Nairn. This customer has eight varieties of wheat and Nairn is holding its own. There is some LG Redwald in the same field and the Nairn is a full tiller ahead currently (GS 21-22).”
Pete visited the crop again on 20 March and continues to be enthusiastic for this promising variety. “Looking well, working away steadily and without too much disease. Tillering very well”
Pete Richardson has good reason to be excited by SY Nairn, performance in Scotland harvest 2025 placed it 2% above alternative soft feed variety Sparkler and 8% higher yielding than RGT Hexton.
Northern Regional Seeds Manager Marc Lanham also has his eyes firmly fixed on Nairn. Based in Holderness, East Yorkshire, but looking after the whole of the northern region Marc is always on the lookout for short, stiff varieties ideal for early drilling or to follow break crops where nitrogen is often left from the previous crop.
SY Nairn is not a variety for light land. Dry conditions do not suit short varieties as stem carbohydrate reserves are rarely sufficient to support high yielding crops. This has meant that for 2025 season where large parts of the UK suffered drought conditions SY Nairn’s performance in trials was lower than normal.
Buy back contract opportunity
‘Soft’ refers to the structure of the starch within the grain. To be designated ‘soft’ the variety must carry two specific genes, PIN A and PIN B, which together form a protein complex known as friabilin. Wheat varieties containing this protein exhibit a softer endosperm and break into finer particles more readily during milling, with lower levels of damaged starch granules compared to hard endosperm varieties.
Working in partnership with end users Agrovista have secured a buy back opportunity for SY Nairn grain specific to this variety.