Crop Watch: Vining pea harvest starts and rising aphid pressure – Farmers Weekly

This is my last crop watch report for spring 2025, and it coincides well with the agronomy season coming to an end this week.

There are still a few crops left to look at, but generally crop walking has been completed.

It seemed like a mad dash to get round all the maize crops for weeds and spring barley crops for T2s over the past two to three weeks, as growing conditions in Devon and Cornwall have been good.

Maize crops in particular are really on the front foot this year, even though there were a few weeks at the end of May/beginning of June when close to 60mm of rain fell around Exeter and temperatures dropped, it still managed to keep putting on leaf.

At the moment a lot of crops, bar the late drilled ones, have beaten the old “knee high by the fourth of July” gauge by some way, with some chest height, so shaping up for a good year on maize.

Weed control has been more straightforward with pre-emergence applications working well, but most received a mop up post-emergence spray.

Spring barley is a little bit all over the place in terms of potential, I seem to have too many crops where you could watch a rabbit run through the drill lines, not having tillered enough.

Fertiliser timings were key this year, too many crops ended up waiting for the fertiliser to be washed in. Disease control has been pretty good, although there are some crops with enough net blotch evident.

Most winter wheat crops received a T3 application as flowering coincided with unsettled weather.

Wheats are still looking clean from septoria, and recent rains have saved them from getting a bit drought stressed and will help maximise yield.

Winter barleys have continued to blossom and look really good, to the point where you ended up driving past some heavy crops after recent rains with bated breath, knowing that some were heavy enough to start to lodge.

Thankfully, most have held up.

I’m very aware we have been lucky in the deep South West with the weather this season.

Just enough rain, at the critical points in the season, to help 80-90% of the crops through to a harvest we shouldn’t be too nervous of. Let us all hope for a dry harvest period.