Product choice will be key in late season – Arable Farming

Well, the year is rolling by, and as we all know in farming, the weather and subsequent soil conditions have a large part to play. The challenging and stressful spring are being reflected in yields in some situations.

However, we have the calmness of the garden to help us de-stress when time allows.

Many saw the Northern Lights in May; I was unfortunately fast asleep after a long day walking fields, but the stars did align on a different day.

The saga of the cuckoos is ongoing and this year we had a huge number of cuckoos in the Waveney Valley calling out day and night and flying around.

Best of all, Dad was over for a Sunday lunch and the cuckoos were calling and for once he had his hearing aid in and it was turned on.

We also had a huge show of mayflies dancing for a few days bobbing up and down in the evening and, as a biological indicator of good water quality, it says a lot about the River Waveney.

There has been plenty of blight around in potatoes, but so far the Fight Against Blight has not reported any of the mainland Europe genotypes which are resistant to either oxathiapiprolin or the CAA group of chemistries which is good news.

The Fight Against Blight, which we help to sponsor, is essential in potato production and hopefully it will continue going forward.

We had an excellent demo day at Worths Farms, with around 75 growers discussing a range of topics, covering potato cyst nematode, wireworm, post-em herbicides and cover crops.

The topic of cover crops was at the forefront of discussion and the PhD we are sponsoring on the effects of cover crops on plant parasitic nematode populations was well received.

Blight, especially tuber blight, will be high on the agenda for many as we get into maincrop and storage, so product choice will need to be at the forefront of this late season management.

Sugar beet has been largely virus-free; the continuous rain probably had a lot to do with this and now attention turns to disease control and the ongoing threat of cercospora. While the weather has not been hugely favourable for cercospora – wet, hot and humid with very warm night temperatures – it is still being found in crops.

So, adherence to a strong programme, with not too long a gap between the applications, will be needed for the rest of the season.

For 2025, there will be a new variety from KWS with much stronger resistance to cercospora, giving growers in hotspots a better choice.

Cover crops in sugar beet are also an ongoing topic of discussion, especially with the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

In the recent British Beet Research Organisation (BBRO) podcast they were mentioned and will no doubt be on the agenda at the BBRO roadshows.

While there are undoubtedly soil benefits for cover crops in many rotations, the management and choice of species is still not well understood for all situations and is an area of some discussion within our business and no doubt will be for some time to come.