Crop Watch – Farmers Weekly
Crop Watch – Farmers Weekly ...
The weather has finally dried up and we have had no rain for 10 days or more. This in itself is now causing problems, with soils drying out too quickly, creating soil caps in sown fields and hard, difficult-to-work seedbeds where the planned crop is not yet sown.
These are principally maize seedbeds, although fodder beet and later-drilled spring cereals have also been affected1. In short, this season just keeps on giving and amply illustrates the point that the more rain you have had, the more you continue to need.
Winter OSR crops still look well and have a really good pod set, with little or no visible signs of any disease. The cool, wet weather has lead to an extended flowering period that has lasted at least six weeks. It remains to be seen whether this will be a positive or not.
The winter barley crops are on the whole looking very promising, and fungicides, where applied in a timely fashion, have done a really good job at controlling disease. The biggest threat to yield this year is significant levels of barley yellow dwarf virus in crops where growers failed to get enough/any aphicide on last autumn. Delayed nitrogen top dressings have also played a part in diminishing the potential of some crops.
Major headache
Septoria in wheat continues to be the major headache of the season, with even well-timed programmes struggling to keep this damaging disease out of the top three leaves. Poorly timed programmes have let this disease rampage through the crop.
Final leaf two has had significant levels of septoria visible on it at growth stage 39 whereT1 fungicide applications were delayed for one reason or another. We can only hope now that the return to drier weather will help to dampen down the spread of this yield-robbing plague.
There have been notable differences between varieties that have good Septoria resistance and those that don’t. Theodore continues to demonstrate exceptional resistance, with its stablemate Champion looking pretty good as well. Extase, having looked very dirty all winter and into the spring, has finally started to demonstrate its better Septoria rating too.
Spring cereals are looking extremely variable, reflecting the difficult period for planting and the excessive amount of rain they have had to endure since planting.
There is still a large acreage of maize left to plant as many fields, despite receiving no rain for 10 days, have remained too wet to create a good seedbed. We will now require the rest of the summer to be on our side from a heat point of view if we are to see the crop off in timely fashion in the autumn.
This report might seem a bit “gloom and doom”, but there are a lot of good crops out there which I am sure, with the right conditions, will go on to perform well. They are just going to require the rest of the inputs to be timely and for the weather to be kind.
With the wet, windy weather we’ve had since T1 fungicides were applied, flag-leaf sprays on winter wheat have had to be robust to protect the upper canopy from septoria.
Varieties that one would have expected to have good resistance to the disease have shown similar amounts of infection than those with lower disease scores, so Extase and Dawsum, to name a couple, are also getting a higher rate of active than initially planned.
In most cases, mefentrifluconazole-based products are being used, with fenpicoxamid used where growers prefer. Although it seems that the weather is drying up, septoria control going forward to T3 timing needs to be considered, keeping in mind that only two applications of products containing SDHI chemistry are allowed in a season.
The gap between T2 and T3 always seems very short, but delaying application of an ear-wash past the correct timing (GS63-65 early flowering) will only reduce the control gained by the fungicide.
Ear spray
Fusarium and rusts are the main target diseases at this stage, and active ingredients used will be mainly azoles and strobilurins unless further action against septoria is needed.
Strobilurins will also keep the crop greener for longer going towards harvest, allowing for greater time to photosynthesise.
The wetter spring has seen some spring drilling delayed, although the majority are now in the ground. Earlier-drilled spring barleys have now had their first fungicide and plant growth regulator, and are well on their way to pushing out their first awns. Likewise, earlier-drilled spring beans are now showing the first sign of flowering, meaning that in terms of growth stage we are now past the window of opportunity for chemical weed control and fungicides are now being selected.
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