Crops bearing up amid disease threat – Farmers Guardian
Farmers across the country continue to face challenges as wet weather, raised pest threat and disease dominate the season. ...
Unlikely there will be record-breaking yields
“Winter wheats are a bit all over the place really,” says Ben Boothman, an independent agronomist and member of the Arable Advisor Group and the Association of Independent Crop Consultants, covering Yorkshire and the North East.
“They are all starting to grow back now and we have seen quite a lot of leaf tipping on some varieties, especially Dawson. They seem to be showing the signs of stress from the season.
Although I would not say there is excessive disease, we have got some brown rust back into some susceptible varieties, such as Champion.
“However, the time for spraying them has gone. It is no longer economically viable, as any damage which could be done will have been done.”
Yields
Although Mr Boothman adds that fungicides have done a ‘reasonable job’, it is unlikely, he says, that there will be any record-breaking yields.
“I think on the whole it will be a fairly average season. Spray timings have been bad owing to the travelling and weather conditions.
“T2 flag leafs did not really get on in time, as on many farms ears were already showing. We have had some T4 on, but if they are not on now, then it is not financially worth it.”
Concerns regarding raised disease threat and pest pressures had been voiced by NIAB plant pathologist Dr Aoife O’Driscoll while addressing visitors at last month’s Cereals event.
She said growers needed to accept that recent environmental pressures meant no amount of ‘chemistry’ could have got them ‘out of bother’ this year.
However, Alex Wilcox, a Norfolk-based farmer and agronomist covering Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, says on the whole most combinable crops are looking healthy.
Areas of concern include the quality and yield of winter barley due to the lack of sunlight, but he remains confident that winter wheat and spring barley have ‘reasonable potential’.
He says: “Black-grass has been a major issue this year, owing to the fact that the ground was so wet. Pre-ems could not be applied on time, which has made a massive difference.
“They [pre-ems] had worked well in autumn, but there is a dramatic difference in the control achieved in spring. For those who have relied solely on a spring contact, it has been a disaster.”
Mr Wilcox says brown rust has been the main problem for many growers as the disease which was helped to carry across the seasons by the warm winter.
Premiums
He says: “It has affected the premiums in terms of milling wheat – if they get brown rust, they will get yellow rust. But if you have been robust with your fungicides and kept your intervals tight you should be fine.
“Markets for milling wheat are still selling at £70 per tonne for premiums which means on a 10t/hectare crop that is £700/ha over feed wheat, it still adds up even if you have had to employ more fungicide.”
The key message this year, according to Mr Wilcox, is that in such conditions, growers had to start early and keep intervals tight.
He says: “Yes, the whole growing season from autumn onwards has been challenging. The spring has been better, because when you have a wet autumn followed by a mild, wet winter, the last thing you want is a dry spring because there is no rooting.
“Yes, disease pressure has been higher, but because we have had regular wet spells, that has given good potential for the cereal planted crop.”
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