Crop Watch East & West – Farmers Weekly
Crop Watch – Farmers Weekly ...
The majority of crops are now on the home straight to harvest. Sugar beet has received its weed control, and monitoring for aphids is still ongoing, although there is a distinct lack of them being found in crops.
Attention is now turning to planning for the autumn drilling campaign before harvest starts so that we have at least an outline plan of our direction of travel. In doing this, we’re still being reminded of last autumn’s dry weather.
The lack of rain prior to the majority of cereal drilling saw flushes of blackgrass and bromes appear as the cereal crops emerged. Dry soils reduced the potency of residual herbicides and we are now seeing high plant populations of blackgrass in places.
Septoria control
Fast forward to the wet spring we’ve just experienced, and septoria control was difficult without using very robust rates of fungicides containing mefentrifluconazole or fenpicoxamid. With crop prices considerably lower now than they were this time last year, input costs need scrutinising.
Delaying drilling this autumn will cut blackgrass pressure, and also reduce Septoria pressure in the spring, which in turn will lower the need to use higher fungicide rates, keeping input costs down. Blackgrass patches will now be mapped before harvest. Variable-rate drilling maps can then be generated, increasing seed rates in these areas to boost crop competition against the weed.
Varietal selection should also be looked at before drilling this autumn. There have been several wheat varieties starting to show big weaknesses to septoria this spring. These varieties have seen an extra fungicide spend of up to £60/ha over and above that of the cleaner varieties on the AHDB Recommended List.
The cost of buying new seed of a cleaner variety can outweigh the potential extra fungicide spend on home-saving existing on-farm varieties with lower disease resistance.
Since last writing, the season has done a complete U-turn. Back in May, at the time of my last contribution, we had had approximately 10 days with no rain and it was beginning to cause problems. Since then, we have had no rain and it has created havoc with the spring cropping.
Crops that went in the ground before the last appreciable rain (about 75mm in two days) are now sitting in severely capped soils, which is never good for any crop. Those that were planted after this rain have flown out of the ground, but are losing moisture too quickly, unless rain falls imminently.
The winter crops have thus far been immune to the dry, hot conditions and, arguably, the wheat crops have greatly benefited as the weather has dried up what was rampant septoria in many crops.
On thin and light soils, however, things are changing rapidly and winter crops that were looking really good a week ago are now beginning to succumb to drought stress, with premature senescence occurring in many fields. At the current rate of progress I can see many winter barley crops being ready in early July.
Maize concerns
As it is a major crop for us in the South West, there are some serious concerns over what will happen to the maize crop. If we see rain before the eight-leaf stage we should get our get-out-of-jail-free card, but if the maize remains stressed through the eight-to 10-leaf stage, we can expect to see missing grain sites and poor cob development.
With a bigger-than-usual crop in the ground and on-farm forage stocks at low levels, it is imperative that maize performs well, but for that to happen we need to receive significant rainfall. The other problem at present is that many maize crops are getting close to the latest growth stage for herbicide applications but, with the lack of rain, only a fraction of the expected weed burden has so far emerged. In short, headaches all round.
The common theme running through this report is that the most important input for all crops at present is rain. There are showers forecast for the next few days. Let’s just hope that they arrive and turn into more general rainfall.
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