ADAMA Insights: Agronomy observations from the field with Michael Farr
It has been very pleasing to witness firsthand how well crops, and the ground have managed to cope with the winter’s large amount of precipitation. Despite causing some concern about how autumn drilled crops would fare, and when spring work would be able to commence, the recent heavy rains will at least have hopefully headed off the threat of another severe drought such as that of 1976.
Unfortunately, though, the heavy rain has caused a rash of chocolate spot in beans and septoria in wheats, with a few streaks of yellow rusts also in evidence. Hopefully, a little sun, dryness, and an appropriate early fungicide application will help to keep the worst of these infections under control.
Barley and wheat crops throughout the south have built large amounts of biomass since they went into the ground, with many crops already looking quite leggy: some of the earliest drilled wheats are already starting to show leaf 4, with T0 planning therefore in full swing as this is the ideal opportunity to kickstart a robust PGR programme and to lay the foundations of disease management – prevention is far better than cure.
Winter OSR is currently at the early stem extension stage, with reports of a few flowers in places. Thankfully the threat of light leaf spot appears low at present. In a lot of cases, nitrogen and sulphur applications have been delayed (along with most other field work), with work ongoing to try to make up for lost time. I’m hearing a lot of talk about N applications being trimmed (in large due to fertiliser replacement costs), and a lot of crops might need a PGR to prevent them getting too tall.
Elsewhere in rotations, as spring drilling gets into gear, please think carefully about herbicide and weed burdens… TOWER® (chlorotoluron 250g/l, diflufenican 40g/l and pendimethalin 300g/l) is a powerful tool for the control of annual meadow grass and broad-leaved weeds, but it can only be applied once in the season so its use needs to be timed accurately.
