Early crop nutrition key to salvaging backward crops – Farmers Weekly

This is certainly a challenging start to the season, as the weather teases us with some sunshine, but then turns the sprinkler system on again.

I acknowledge that the conditions are challenging and frustrating. It would be all too easy for me to complain about the weather; instead I’m going to discuss some of the things we can control.

Rooting was a major issue last spring and resulted in a large amount of lodging. Crops that sit in waterlogged soils will shed their roots as a survival mechanism. Early nutrition will be key to encouraging new root growth and anchoring crops into the soil.

Nitrogen is important, but primarily encourages biomass production, and high doses will cause crops to concentrate on the main stem, unless we can use proper plant growth regulation.

Phosphate will promote root growth, be this bagged, foliar or, if you are happy to invest, phosphites which encourage the most root growth.

Root focus

Give crops a chance. If we overly restrict the inputs to a crop then we have decided its fate already. There are some good crops out there, with reasonable yield potential, but some of the poorer looking fields could still be surprising if they are afforded the opportunity.

Start with a low rate of nutrition and PGR to encourage tillering. Be careful with early herbicide applications, particularly acetolactate synthase (ALS) inhibiting chemistry on wheat, until they are actively growing and look healthy. The last thing we want is to set a backward crop back even more.

Good old-fashioned rolling might be a benefit when ground conditions improve. Soils are anaerobic due to the waterlogging, meaning the vital soil biology cannot function, so letting soils breathe again will be a huge help.