Unique flexi-oat milling buy-back contract

Our flexi-oat contract offers a solution that best suits you and your oat marketing requirements, giving you full control.

We are offering unique, flexible buy-back milling oat growing contracts to help us meet the rising demand from UK oat mills.

To support our growers, we offer various contract options to spread financial risk, manage a fluctuating market, and provide more choice.

Available for winter planting is the number one winter oat variety, Mascani, and for spring, the standout Merlin.

Benefits of our flexi-oat contracts

Choose an option that best suits you
Ability to choose markets with premiums
Competitive premium.

Flexi-oat contracts with five flexible options

Open market contract
Futures-related contract
Flexible 50/50 open market or futures-related contract
Seed contract
Gluten-free contract.

Winter oats

Mascani

No.1 UK winter oat variety
Superb grain quality
Large grains

Mascani is the most widely grown winter oat in the UK and is well established as the favourite of millers and growers alike. It is a stiff strawed variety with excellent resistance to mildew and good resistance to crown rust and so is of particular interest to growers in susceptible areas. With its exceptionally high kernel content, excellent specific weight, large grains and low screening losses, Mascani remains the leading top quality, popular milling variety.

Spring oats

Merlin

Highest treated yields
Highest untreated yields
Lowest screening losses – a major plus for the mill
Early to mature
Best standing score

Merlin is an outstanding addition to the spring oat market which delivers an unrivalled combination of yield, agronomic features and disease resistance. It’s suited to all regions in the UK and produces high quality oats when grown either organically or conventionally.A Cope variety, Merlin is a high performing, high yielding for treated and untreated crops, and has very low screenings, suiting both the farmer and miller. It’s tall with excellent standing ability that offers a specific weight above the 50kg/hl milling oat requirement.

“We’re pleased with Merlin’s performance in 2023 trials and it seems that Isabel and Merlin are front-runners in terms of spring varieties. Trials in Suffolk, Hampshire and Kent showed that the earlier Merlin is drilled, the better the resulting yield and bushel weight. When drilled in February/early March, the yield figures started at 6t/ha in Suffolk, 8t/ha in Hampshire, and 9t/ha on the fertile Kent site, with bushel weight at over 50 kilos for each trial, and screenings at around 3%. It also had very good standing ability consistently.”
Brin Hughes, agronomy manager at Richardson Milling