With soil and air temperatures one degree warmer than ‘normal’ and warm rain, it’s no surprise that crops are flying out of the ground this year. Oilseed rape is anything from two leaf up to ten-leaf. Earlier drilled wheat has 2-3 leaves and barley has 1-2 leaves. This is all very different to last year. I have one customer who managed to put the drill back in the barn one day earlier this year than he got it out last year.

Phoma is starting to become visible now, but I have yet to find any crops that are at threshold. If plants are large we can wait until there are 20% of plants infected, but with smaller plants, spray once 10% of plants are infected. Where it is on farm then the first spray will be based around Capitan (flusilazole) and many crops will want some metconazole as a PGR as well. Where flusilazole hasn’t been put onto farm, I’ll be recommending mixes of Proline (prothioconazole) and Monkey (prochloraz + tebuconazole) with rates being determined by whether growth regulation is needed and the risk of light leaf spot, as well as phoma control.

Cereal crops have gone into some brilliant seed-beds and so have germinated very rapidly. Most pre-ems have gone on before crops have come through, but there have been places where they have gone on at peri-emergence. With warm and moist soils, grassweed emergence has been fast, therefore most land had at least one stale seed-bed prior to drilling, some had two. Pre-ems have been based around flufenacet, pendimethalin and diflufenican, with some flupyrsulfuron added on fields where blackgrass is a major issue. This year the pre-ems are working well and this is confirmed if you find any missed areas.

The worry at the moment is the threat of BYDV infection. Aphid numbers are rising and are very easy to find on volunteers. It won’t take long for them to fly into emerging crops, so regular monitoring will be required. Where seed was dressed with Deter (clothianidin) then BYDV risk is lower as the seed dressing will give 6-10 weeks cover depending on drilling date and seed rate. Crops that weren’t Deter dressed, then insecticide programmes will need to start as soon as aphids are found on the crop. Like autumn 2011 this may be a year when we need multiple applications, until the weather turns against the aphids.