The mild autumn has meant that crops have continued to grow, which has been a huge relief where crops were starved of moisture until rain arrived around the 3rd week October and did not emerge until that point. It has also allowed the very backward rape crops to get to the advanced stage of 4 true leaves and pretty much all germinate!

Ground conditions are very good as, in fairness, it has to date been relatively dry since the first rainfall of October. We have had somewhere in the region of 5" of rainfall since that point.

We had our first taste of winter three weeks ago, with a four day run of temperatures down as low as -5C. Frosts are forecast for most of this week as well. The good field conditions has meant clients have started to apply P&K where required. With the warm winter some wild oats are already 8-10" tall and I have been finding spring germinating wild oats for the last 2-3 weeks.

There is an air of optimism as crops have come through the winter in good condition, promising good yield potential. The mild winter weather has had a huge impact on our agronomic starting point this spring; it has encouraged well tillered, forward crops, weed growth and disease development, whilst having little impact on aphid survival. The recent cold snap during the transition of January to February is unlikely to change the magnitude of these factors but may influence the pace of fieldwork in early spring.

Following the mild winter it is worth checking that all cereal crops were protected against BYDV infection (by seed treatment and or foliar sprays) into early November, at least. Any crops unprotected until this time could host aphids from an extended autumn flight bought about by mild conditions. As a precaution it could be worth controlling any overwintered populations in these crops before colonies expand and spread the virus in early spring.

Much improved weather in the past few weeks has given growers an opportunity to attempt to catch up with winter ploughing. However, in late lifted potato fields where soil structure was more or less destroyed, gentle handling will be required to get them back into order to plant spring barley.

On the whole autumn sown crops have improved since the turn of the year due to the generally clement growing conditions. Winter barley crops that had shown typical yellow patches in the autumn due to waterlogged soils have greened up well. Mildew can be found at low levels which will require treatment, along with a net blotch/rhyncosporium spray plus a top up of manganese when ground conditions allow.

Winter wheat crops are generally more dense than I care to see. A robust growth regulator programme will be the order of the day probably commencing with the T0 fungicide treatment. 

It's hard to believe February's already arriving. The few frosts we've had so far have done little more than steady our winter crops, leaving them thicker and lusher than we've seen for many years. What a contrast to this time last season.

Our key priority for both wheat and rape this year is clearly holding them back. A far more encouraging position than we've had of late, but one which poses its own unique set of challenges.

Perhaps the biggest of these is spring nitrogen. In the past, dare I say it, things were simple. We just altered our Nitram timings. But these days we have a serious dilemma. Mainly because we're using nitrogen:sulphur compounds which come in fixed ratios and are already on-farm, ready and waiting.

We have to get a decent amount of sulphur onto our crops early. And, recent experience has taught us the drought insurance value of early nitrogen, but about the last thing most of our crops need if they're to stay standing is early N.

At the moment I can't see us putting any fertiliser on our wheat or oilseed rape until the end of February at the earliest. At the same time, we'll probably be splitting the first dose so we get enough S on early without going over the top on the N. With the lack of individual nutrient flexibility we have these days, this is our only real option.

CropWatch South - Iain Richards, Masstock - 2/12/2011

Disease Problems Come for the Fore

We're currently doing something I've never previously done in 20 years as an agronomist - spraying winter barley in December for mildew. Two weeks back and we were content to leave it to the onset of colder, wetter weather to limit the spread of early infections. But the persistent mildness and lack of rain has certainly put paid to this, with mildew levels in crops on thinner and more manganese deficiency-prone soils, in particular, suddenly romping away to affect 60% or more of the leaf area in some cases.

To protect critical and seriously threatened barley tillers we've been getting in with straight or co-formulated fenpropimorph or fenpropidin, adding foliar manganese to help the crops recover and more effectively fight-off the challenge.

While mildew levels have also built-up in more susceptible wheat varieties, their far greater ability to compensate for early leaf losses means they don't warrant treatment yet, although we may need to treat these too if conditions allow infections to threaten winter survival.

Of far more concern with the wheat are the levels of early yellow and brown rust we've also been recording. If we don't get a decent prolonged period of cold weather, we'll be starting the spring with very worrying levels of infection in many crops. With this in mind - not to mention memories of 2007 - we're gearing up to nip any problems in the bud with a robust early T0, prioritising crops that haven't had the benefit of a foliar-disease active fluquinconazole seed treatment for an eradicant as well as protectant spray.

On the plus side, the past few weeks have enabled us to take full advantage of one of the best early post-em blackgrass control opportunities of recent years, optimising water volumes, nozzle choice and spray quality as well as application timeliness. Just as well given the autumn's particular pre-planting and pre-em control challenges.

The open early winter has also proved a boon for our primary spring cropping cultivations. We've been able to get good glyphosate weed control and set up compaction and clod-free ground nice and early for the frost. All we need now is some cold weather.

Which is also what we're badly needing for our OSR. This time last year, average soil temperatures in Hampshire were 6^oC. But we're only just seeing them fall to the 10^oC needed for the best propizamide and carbetamide activity and persistency.

Although we've started spraying our less well developed crops, we're continuing to hold-off on the more forward ones in the hope of some decent cold weather to shrink their canopies back enough for even soil application. For the best activity too, we'd really like to see lower soil moisture deficits than we have in most cases.

It's a difficult balancing act and test of nerves. With the sort of dryness we have in most of our
subsoils, though, we look like being able to have a good spraying window yet.

November has passed like a scene in the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day with every day being a repeat of the last one, dull, dry and still. This makes your friendly agronomist look a fool as every week he declares "that's it for the year, put the sprayer away we won't get any more spray days!" This is followed the following week by "let's spray that late drilled wheat". 

Rain in early November and some perfect spraying conditions subsequently have resulted in rapid blackgrass emergence in wheats and a considerable amount of Atlantis/Horus (iodosulfuron + mesosulfuron) being applied. Soil moisture has also activated the residuals to the extent that the later sown wheats contain some sick looking blackgrass.

There is still some follow up Atlantis/Horus to be applied and while conditions remain suitable, with soil temperatures still around 10C, it will be sprayed if conditions allow. In some cases larger and more difficult blackgrass warrants the addition of a contact + residual partner.

Wheat crops are a mixed bag with some very lush crops plastered in mildew and some of the earlier drilled crops still struggling to emerge.  Barley tends to respond to an autumn fungicide in such circumstances more than wheat, but there has been some mildewicide applied to struggling wheats especially on lighter and chalkier soils.

A quick glance at the calendar tells me it is December this week, hard to believe after the mild weather we have had recently.

Rape crops continue to race away and some are carrying huge canopies going into the winter. Soil temperatures have now declined enough to start applying Kerb (propyzamide) or Crawler (carbetamide) but given the size of some crops getting a residual herbicide down to the soil surface will be a problem. In large canopied crops we may have to wait until frosts open the crop up.

Phoma levels are low at the moment and opinion is split on the merit of adding a second fungicide whilst traveling through the crop. Aphid numbers are still high in crops and I am adding an insecticide to control these: cabbage stem flea beetle and rape winter stem weevil.

More advanced wheat and barley crops are carrying high levels of disease especially mildew. I have treated a few barley crops on light land, but I dont think the disease is worth treating on wheat crops at the moment, hopefully once we finally get some frosts this will sort the problem out.

The unusually mild weather throughout November has been a great help to all the late drilled crops in the area. With a late maize harvest there has been a significant acreage of wheat planted later than usual this year.

The vast majority of these crops have taken as little as 12 to 14 days to emerge after planting. The mild spell has also allowed later drilled crops of oilseed rape and winter linseed to put on growth and establish better before the onset of winter. Some of the August drilled oilseed rape now has such a large canopy that it now has the potential to become a management headache rather than being straightforward.

Pre-emergence herbicides have either worked really well or grass weeds are slow to emerge this autumn. I have several known brome sites where there is very little sign of  Brome emergence and certainly not enough to go with an Atalantis (iodosulfuron + mesosulfuron) or Broadway Star (florasulam and pyroxsulam) application.

This is unfortunate as the mild weather would have made for ideal timing for either of these products, which are temperature dependant for efficacy. Volunteer beans have now been controlled in many crops, particularly those established using non-inversion cultivations.

All crops generally look very well as the long run of mild weather continues. With very little rain in the past month most autumn spray programmes have now been completed.

A lot of Atlantis has been applied to small blackgrass in ideal conditions so hopefully control will be maximised. The main issue affecting cereals at present is the high levels of disease, particularly mildew.

Most barley crops are carrying some mildew but varieties such as Cassia, Cassata and Saffron are suffering particularly badly. With such mild weather the mildew has had a free run with no frosts to check disease development. Although exceptional, some crops of barley will warrant a mildewicide so that the barley plants can maintain shoot numbers, biomass and ultimately yield.