Recently by Brian Ross

Have just finished subscribing to the "build your own Noahs ark" kit!!! The land is absolutely saturated and any thoughts of land work will be on hold for a fair time. Conditions that some of the late sugar beet were lifted in means the soil structure has been well and truly compromised.
 
With prices of spring cropping not looking too clever careful thought must be made as to whether these fields should be left fallow in order to try and restructure the soil during the year.
This could form part of your contribution to the Campaign for Farmed Environment in that a cover crop of, for instance, mustard etc will help both you and the wildlife provided it is not cut down until after nesting.

Some fallow land I did last year worked very well on both counts particularly in sucking up the excess moisture enabling it to be ploughed very well in the autumn. Rape crops have been attacked quite badly by pigeons so that the crops with large leaf area last time I wrote are now not! This has implications for the amounts of N for the first application.

A new year, but not a lot has happened on the crops as yet, apart from, that is, the weather.

In this part of the world we have had quite a lot of snow which has been a blessing as far as the very forward crops of rape are concerned. Several years ago we had not only severe cold temperatures, but a lot more snow than this year. However, the severe cold had weakened the forward crops so much that the rape collapsed and suffered from snow rot.

This year however, the snow came before the severe cold and acted as an insulating layer so no collapsing rape. In fact, most crops at the moment look very well.

Finally decent amounts of rain are allowing crops to fully emerge and with the relatively warm sunny weather, grow away well.

Bare patches in oilseed rape have by and large filled in with a lot of new, small plants. After last year's experiences hopefully they will make it through the winter. I have seen a few myzus persicae in some crops so be aware of these as they can transmit the Turnip Yellow Virus.

Other pests seen, apart from slugs which have now come to the surface after the rain, include a few cabbage root aphid larvae on some roots of large rape plants, turnip sawfly larvae and some plants near hedgerows with clusters of mealy aphids. None of these are at threshold levels but nonetheless are interesting to find. I have also heard that a further generation of leaf miner flies have been seen.

A young trainee I have with me spotted the first leaf with phoma I have seen this year so if conditions remain mild vigilance will be needed. A 10% threshold trigger should be used if this is reached, especially on the smaller plants.

Pre-emergence herbicides applied to early-drilled crops are having mixed success at the moment. Some will need a little longer before any thoughts of follow up sprays are acted on. Rain has only just activated them and a I feel it will be a little longer before decisions will be made.

Blackgrass that is beyond two leaves and showing no symptoms will need to be addressed sooner rather than later with regard to Atlantis application. Beware of complicated tank mixes if applying to lush crops particularly in barley - a hardening off period should be observed before application.

Several bird cherry aphids have been seen in the last few days so untreated crops are at risk of barley yellow dwarf virus.

As I write clouds are gathering, but cynicism does not get my hopes up about rain.

 We did have a welcome few hours on Monday, which left between 5-12mm depending on where you were.

This has softened soils but the wind and sun has dried a lot of this up.

Decisions on patchy rape crops are to be left until next weekend to see if the rain has triggered germination of the seeds that were planted into dust.

I am slightly surprised to come back from the lush, sunny Dordogne to the East Anglian "Sahara", which was quickly evident in the noise and dust of farm machinery.

Rape that went in three weeks ago has generally come up well and is now at three to six leaves. But slightly later drillings are struggling in the dry. This has meant many planned sprays haven't gone on yet, be they pre or post-emergence.

Volunteer barley, however, is growing well and is being taken out now as the shading on the smaller rape plants will not help.

Slugs are not a problem, but flea beetle is having to be addressed even where seed dressings were used, particularly on very small uneven stands.

As I write we've just endured 39mm of rain in under an hour.

Fortunately, there was no wind, so the fear of flattened corn hasn't materialised as yet.

Winter barleys are turning rapidly. On light land crops have burnt out in patches, but on the heavier soils they're ripening naturally. I've no idea how yields will go, as the ears are quite full, but tiller numbers are lower than last year.

Spring barley is very thin after the prolonged period without rain just as it was tillering, although it looks better than it should in many fields in this area. Late N uptake may cause problems with malting quality.