Crop Watch: BYDV aphid threat and rain hit maize harvest – Farmers Weekly

I have been hoping for a couple of weeks of good weather to make progress on the maize harvest and the autumn drilling. It seems someone was listening, as we can now expect 10 days of relatively good weather. Sighs of relief all round.

Maize harvest has continued in between the outbreaks of rain, with crops still yielding pretty well for the year. Unfortunately, one of the storms caused a number of crops to lodge (particularly the later-drilled crops in the spring). This has made harvest even more tricky and the plough is the only way to hide a lot of the material that has been left.

Drilling has been a stop-start affair, but slowly, more acres have gone in the ground.

Some crops drilled several weeks ago have emerged, albeit with patches in the field where seed has rotted. Spraying has also been sporadic.

Large acreages of winter barley have emerged with no pre- emergence applied and as yet no aphicide, so many of these will receive their application over the next 10 days.

With aphid counts (particularly the bird cherry aphid) revealing high numbers – and evidence in the field that this is the case – the aphicide can’t go on quick enough

If the good weather being promised materialises then any winter barley drilled in the next week or so will receive a pre-emergence herbicide.

The old adage “if it’s dry enough to drill it’s dry enough to spray” is making a lot of sense, as one cannot rely on getting the post-emergence application on if the weather turns.

Slug pressure has increased in the past few weeks, with some damage in establishing cereal and grass crops.

Cereals are particularly suffering where they follow OSR crops, or where the seed-bed is a bit cloddy or has any trash on the surface.

Ever the optimist, I’m confident that by next time all maize will be harvested and drilling completed. Just don’t ask me to put any money on it.