As my other cropwatch penpushers have said over the last week or so, enough is enough, 80mm of rain in 17 days is a little over the top. Admittedly everything is green but the difficulties in getting anything done is beginning to be worrying. The value of T0 sprays has shown up markedly this year [...]
Phew, what a blast. After three weeks rain in excess of 100mm, the ground is saturated and the drains are running full-bore. All we needed was 20 mm and that would have sorted it out. We’ve never been seriously short of moisture in the north west and certainly aren’t now. Next, can we have some [...]
It’s fair to say weather has been our issue this month, and there’s been plenty of it. So far, up to the point of writing (29th April), we have had 23 days where it has rained amounting to a total of 95mm. In addition we’ve had six air frosts, about 10 ground frosts and an [...]
Wet weather means fungal diseases are flourishing while T1 fungicides look likely to be delayed – a recipe for disaster?
I guess I was tempting providence last month by requesting a small quantity of rain! Most areas on the eastern side of Scotland have had more rain in April than the total for December to March. Some places have had hail and snow too. No brownie points there. Spring barleys, even those in cloddy [...]
Spray days is what we really need as we come to perhaps the most critical period in our spring crop protection and canopy management programme. Judging from current conditions, we’re going to have to seize every spraying opportunity we can while doing everything possible to maximise the rainfastness of our mixes. In wheat our crop [...]
Barley yellow dwarf virus has started to show up in many crops in the last month. It has been several years since we have seen a widespread infection of this aphid-borne viral disease. At the moment it seems to be limited to barley, but the disease does not tend to show wheat and oats until later. [...]
Planting in Cheshire got off to a flying start at the end of February and early March. Soil conditions were exceptionally good with chitted first earlies, covered with fleece, emerging rapidly. Even planting in Lancashire got off to a relatively early start. Most growers in Yorkshire and the Borders made a start during the [...]