With the crop25 harvest consigned to history and autumn drilling now well underway, two grain traders offer their thoughts on the current UK wheat market and reveal why Soft wheat could be firmly back in rotations for many farmers.

James Clark, a Farm Trader with GrainCo for 15 years, had previously experienced a few false dawns with Group 3 Soft wheats so Bamford’s arrival in 2023, for him, was timely for a Group 3 sector that seemed in terminal decline.

He says” Although as a business we are still trading much higher volumes of Hard wheat, there’s little doubt that one variety has singularly revitalized the Soft wheat supply and accounts for the increased tonnage we’ve seen this season. Like many traders, I was cautiously optimistic about Bamford when it entered the Recommended List. Yes, it had trialed well, but we were only just getting over the disappointment of another Group 3 – KWS Barrel, which had also looked promising before succumbing to Septoria.

“Fast forward to autumn 2025 and Bamford, with two challenging seasons now under its belt, has already captured 10% of the winter wheat market and begun to change hearts and minds in a sector that was looking very Hard wheat centric.

“Factor in yields high enough to compete with the best Hard Group 4 Feeds, a 6.6 for Septoria tritici, the Pch1 Rendezvous resistance gene to eyespot, consistently high bushel weights favored by distillers and good protein levels, and you have a variety with many talents.

“Although it’s difficult to pinpoint just how much of the Soft wheat we’ve traded is specifically Bamford grain, it’s clear that a lot of Bamford grain has ended up in flour mills and it has taken a significant share of the total Soft biscuit wheat that we sell” he concludes.

Jeremy Pope, a Trader with ADM Milling, also recognizes Bamford’s recent success but sees price parity between Soft and Hard wheat as well as continued consistency of supply and grain quality from Soft wheats such as Bamford as the key going forwards.

He adds” There is good milling demand for Bamford and what we’ve seen this year is that the quality of Soft wheat across all the key metrics - including protein levels, bushel weights and Hagberg have been equal to those of Hard wheat.

“Following the crop25 harvest we supplied 250 lorry loads of Soft wheat to our mills in the UK, and 124 of those loads have been Bamford. Another positive, is that we have predominantly used Soft wheat in 2 of our mills and, in both those mills, we have been able to buy Soft wheat at the same price as Hard wheat. By buying both Soft and Hard at parity we’ve been able to successfully adjust our recipes with customers to include Soft wheat in them and, whilst we still trade significantly more Hard wheat than Soft wheat, Bamford’s success is definitely a step in the right direction.

“In terms of the future, if supply and quality can be guaranteed then I’m confident that our bigger customers will buy more Soft wheat if we can obtain the same price versus Hard. Whether they will ever return to a 50/50 supply ratio between Hard and Soft wheat is difficult to forecast, particularly when you bring in other important factors such as the wheat price and what the size of the winter wheat area will be for crop26.

“The wheat price has been falling since February and was around £166/t at the time of writing in mid-September so prices are down, and it will be interesting to see what growers decide this autumn. However, there’s no doubt that Bamford’s success could be a major factor for many growers tempted to switch allegiance from Hard to Soft for crop26” he concludes.