It is during the rapid period of growth that problem areas of fields really start to lag behind – Arable Farming – Darryl Shailes
We have been very busy in the garden over the last few weeks. ...
There has not been much time to sit and listen for cuckoos, but they are still around and calling from time to time. Our eldest daughter got married last weekend so it has been a constant effort to keep the garden tidy.
Living in the flood plain of the River Waveney the water table is always pretty high, so combined with the long daylight hours and May being warmer than average, this has meant that the vegetation had grown at a tremendous rate. It has been a battle keeping everything under control and many hours have been spent on the ride-on mower. But we managed and come the day everything looked splendid.
We hired a marquee from the village community centre and one of my colleagues, who has a 1935 Rolls Royce Phantom, duly delivered the bride to and from the church. We were blessed with the weather, warm and pretty much a full moon as we celebrated into the early hours. However, that does not mean cutting grass is all I’ve been doing in May as the sugar beet and potatoes have grown at an equally rapid rate.
If the old saying is true about a good beet crop being ‘down the row by the Suffolk Show and across the row by the Norfolk Show’ then we should be in for a bumper year, as long as we get enough rain and can keep out disease.
It is during this rapid period of growth that the problem areas of fields really start to lag behind the better areas. We have seen the usual crop of problems-poor seedbeds hampering growth, some crop being drilled too deep and, of course, acid patches.
The issue with acidity is ever present and needs addressing if the crop is to perform and make money.
Mapping
A general loam analysis is not good enough and fields need to be mapped for acidity manually or scanned. More and more growers are using mapping systems such as our own TerraMap and this can help with planning away from issues related to the soil.
The next thing will be disease management in beet and it is good to see that we have got a new product to help with that. Caligula (carboxamide + triazolinthione) from Bayer will be especially useful if cercospora becomes an issue. With the hot, thundery days and warm nights like we had in 2020, cercospora could be a big issue once again.
Potatoes have grown at an equally rapid rate with canopies and tuber size being way ahead of this time last year.
We have had our first Hutton Period and have had several near misses but no reports of blight that I am aware of so far, apart from in the south west of the country. It will be interesting to see how blight develops this year and whether EU 36 A2, which dominated the epidemic in East Anglia last year, will again be the main issue in 2022 or if some other strain will come to the fore.
It is good that the Scottish Government has stepped in and agreed to fund the Fight Against Blight programme this year. It is still being run up at James Hutton and any blight samples should be sent in to keep us all informed about what is going on. The continental weather we have just had of 32degC heat, thundery showers and very warm nights could also trigger an early alternaria outbreak.
Alternaria is always a challenge in terms of the perception of risk and effect on yield and control, with reports of samples being resistant to strobilurins and older SDHIs. While we have mancozeb in the background that will help, beyond that, products based on newer SDHIs and triazoles are our best way forward where they can be justified.
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