Crop Watch East & West – Farmers Weekly
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At the time of writing there is very little to report on the winter cereal side of things. A lot of crops are now drilled. The vast majority are either just emerging, or not yet emerged.
Pre-emergence herbicides have been applied, and the next worry will be getting the BYDV programme off to a timely start. There are still quite large numbers of bird cherry-oat aphids being caught at the Starcross site, which is usually a good indicator that there is a likely problem.
The winter OSR has generally established well with little or no CSFB problems. However, the turnip sawfly larvae are causing problems in places. Early post-emergence herbicides have generally worked well, and rapeseed crops are looking relatively clean.
Maize harvest
The maize crops are coming off as I write. There is a lot of wheat to go into the ground after the maize, but the harvest is progressing very slowly, partly due to the weather, and partly due to the size of the crop. Many crops are yielding 20% to 25% above average, meaning foragers are only able to crawl through the crops.
It is nice to finish the harvest with a crop that is performing above, rather than below, average. With quite a bit of wheat left to drill we could do with a dry seven to 10 days, but who knows what this will bring.
The next headache will be finding enough spray windows to get some well-timed BYDV sprays onto the winter cereals. There is a limited acreage of BYDV-tolerant Grouse in the ground, and it will be interesting to see how the genetic control option compares with the traditional pyrethroid insecticide for control of this damaging disease.
For all those left with crops to plant, good luck in the coming weeks.
Although there have been good early flushes of blackgrass on stubbles, those who have held off drilling winter cereals in my area have seen another good flush emerging on prepared land in the past few days. After the recent rains, soil moisture in the top of the profile will see pre-emergence chemistry function better.
For those fields where blackgrass is emerging among already emerged wheat and barley, a top-up of flufenacet-based chemistry tank mixed with an insecticide for BYDV would give prolonged action against the weed. Large populations of slugs have also made an appearance this autumn, particularly in fields following OSR.
The possibility that crops drilled after the recent rains may not get rolled, and the now wetter soils, will provide a favourable environment for them to move at ease between seeds.
Traps should be placed in crops to monitor slug numbers and, if present, an application of ferric phosphate pellets should be made.
Winter beans
Once winter cereals have been drilled, attention will turn to getting winter beans in the ground. With temperatures in the first half of October being unseasonably warm, soil temperatures have not dropped as quickly as usual. This will cause a couple of issues.
The time from drilling to emergence will be relatively short, allowing less time in potentially catchy conditions to get the pre-emergence herbicide on. If propyzamide is used, the warmer soils will reduce its half-life, giving a shorter window of control.
With all EAMUs (bar those for seed crops) being removed from major crops, this now limits the number of pendimethalin products that can be applied to the crop, and negates straight pendimethalin products. It is advisable to make sure the product you use has winter field beans on the product label.
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