Crop Watch: Slow wheat drilling progress and high slug pressure – Farmers Weekly

In the North, the late harvest has resulted in drilling being delayed by 2-3 weeks.

Oilseed rape crops have established well, but are under increasing slug pressure and grassweed flushes are being tackled as the clethodim herbicide cut-off date approaches.

Harvest is all but finished here in Northumberland, with spring pulses and maize left to go.

The beans seem to be taking an incredibly long time to die and are starting to make a few of us wonder if we forgot the spray them off. The days of diquat were good ones.

Crop moisture was an issue all harvest, with damp days holding the grain moistures up and many being forced to cut crops wetter than they would have liked to be able to make progress.

Drilling is well underway, unlike this time last year, with barleys and first wheats in the ground and beginning to emerge.

Slugs haven’t been an issue, but recent wet weather is starting to favour them, so attention will be needed in this department.

Soils have suffered a lot over the past 12 months, with many of them having been worked and sown twice, meaning the heavier ground has been a struggle to work down for some.

So far we have thankfully missed a lot of the heavy rain, and I feel for those further south when I hear the rainfall figures being quoted.

The one crop of the month has to be oilseed rape. This is the first time that my acreage has decreased, with customers dropping OSR in favour of oats or Sustainable Farming Incentive options.

The usual stressful period of checking crops two to three times a week, battling slugs and CSFB has actually been relatively straightforward.

The early sown crops after winter barley are wall-to-wall at six true leaves, with the later-sown fields starting to play catch-up.

Some hefty plant growth regulator would be a good idea to strengthen the growing point and regulate the bigger crops – this is a nice problem to have.

I will be waiting for some colder weather before applying propyzamide, so we can hit the target weeds and soil.

For many, drilling is 2-3 weeks behind our traditional schedule with the knock-on effect of late spring sown cereals delaying harvest, so there is more to be sown in October than might usually be the case.

However, when I think back to last autumn while driving around the county and looking at fields starting to green up, I can’t help but feel an air of positivity.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a good season ahead as I think we all deserve one!