Recently by Bryce Rham

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.

Over the last 10 days, we have had approximately 25-40mm of rain across the whole region, which has been enough to get all crops chitting. However, it has by no means had any major effect on the big soil-moisture deficit in this area.

 

The rain has arrived too late for some oilseed rape crops and I think somewhere in the region of 300-500 acres of rape has been ripped up - not all mine - in the area and either replaced with a second or third wheat or winter oats.

 

I have quite a few acres of rape that is still only at cotyledon to 2-3 true leaves which we are leaving to see if they make it through to the spring. With soil temperatures still at 12C, crops are growing quickly, especially where they have either poultry litter or sludge cake underneath them.

 

Extremely dry conditions within a 15-20-mile radius of Shrewsbury means I still have oilseed rape fields with very little crop emergence, if any, and wheat fields after rape with only partial emergence. Any ground that has been ploughed and drilled, mainly ahead of second wheat, is also struggling to emerge. 

 

I would guess that this predicament is affecting approximately half my combinable area to a greater or lesser degree. The land starts to get more arid the further west I come from Cannock/west of the M6, and by the time I get to Telford the impact of the dry conditions start to kick in.

 

South Shropshire has had reasonable amounts of rainfall, as has the north of the county. But rainfall over the past six weeks in-between probably amounts to 10-15 mm, on top of a very dry summer. At least an inch of rain is needed to get crops chitting/emerging.

It's official - in the Midlands it is now the driest it has been since 1976. We would normally have had 20in (500mm) of rain by now, but we have only had half this amount.

 

As ever one has to take the rough with the smooth. Harvest was completed in record time with most combines parked up two to three weeks ago. Yields of winter OSR and winter wheat have been exceptional, with most breaking their long-term averages. It must be said that very light land yields have not been very good, never quite recovering from the early dry spell.

 

Oilseed rape drilling is finished and some has found moisture. Localised rainfall is all that makes the difference between crops germinating or not. Quite a few are just sitting in dust and will not germinate until we get a decent spell of rainfall.

Since my last blog we in the west have been extremely fortunate in that we have had 10-15mm of rain each week since the 1st dollop arrived. This came just as the flag leaves were emerging and has been enough to allow wheat crops to transform themselves from looking somewhat insipid to dark green.

We do have thin crops on the light land, but with all this late uptake of nitrogen I am expecting there to be good bushel weights. Looking at the crops, we do not appear to be on for an ultra-early harvest as we were originally thinking, but a lot will depend on the weather over the next two to three weeks (ie hot and dry or damp and wet.

The rain was also just in time for the spring barley, but goodness knows what the nitrogen content will be like in the malting sample with all this late nitrogen uptake.

Rainfall over the last two weeks has amounted to anything from 15-45mm and can be separated by a few miles as the crow flies. Very high winds over the weekend and today will not be helping the soil moisture deficit. But we are still very thankful for what we have had.

Wheat has responded very well, and has turned dark green as a result of taking up nitrogen from last week of March and end of April applications. Soils on the heavy side of medium and medium soils with inherent fertility have coped well with the dry conditions with little signs of tiller loss. But soils on the light side of medium and soils with little inherent fertility have lost tillers to a greater or lesser degree.

Where rainfall has been greatest it has penetrated down to 5-6 inches within the profile and should keep the crop going for a while. Despite the windy conditions T2 has, in the main, been completed albeit with timings running between 23-28 days. Rightly or wrongly we decided to stick with bixafen plus prothioconazole based upon recent rainfall and potential value of crop.

Some of my colleagues have been gently reminding me about my recent article in the 2011 Bayer Spring Crop Focus in which I stated that the 25% less rainfall we experienced in spring 2010 was "likely to be the exception rather than the norm". But having had around 10mm here since the beginning of March, conditions are now extremely dry.

Temperatures reached 24C here at the end of last week. Some growers have been lucky enough to be situated under a thunderstorm over the last few days, but the storms have cleared pretty quickly. We have also been experiencing heavy dews over the last 7-10 days which has meant that crops have been wet in the mornings.

In winter wheats, yellow rust has appeared in crops of Oakley that did not receive a T0 fungicide seven days ago. They went from nothing to major infection in the space of a week. Mildew is the worst I have seen for some time, with Diego the worst affected, despite all the late frosts. I think that the primary reason is the stress levels being placed upon crops.

One should never wish for rain, but it is very dry and nitrogen applied to cereals some three weeks ago is only just being taken up. Light-land cereals are looking somewhat pale and sorry for themselves.

There are rumours that we may get wet on Wednesday - let's hope so. Frosts are still occurring and it would be very helpful if this aspect of the weather gave up the ghost as well.

I'm really pleased with winter linseed crops which are branching out well. Some are now 15cm tall with good ground coverage. Winter losses are about 2-3% of plants, certainly no higher.

Pigeons do like linseed, albeit not to the same degree as oilseed rape, and the problem seems to be rising now. I suspect this is because the oilseed rape is getting to a point where they cannot land, so they are turning to the next easy target.

We're having some frustrating weather at the moment. Just as ground conditions become good enough to get field work done, we get a downpour of rain (1 inch) over the weekend.

Last Thursday we had a glorious spring type day with blue skies and temperatures up to 12C. There have been a few opportunities to apply P&K over the last month, but there is still plenty to do.

Some nitrogen and sulphur product was applied last week to light land oilseed rape and wheat as well as some backward oilseed rape crops. No spring barley is in as yet, but clients are hoping to start this week/next week.

I would rather see it going into soils that are warming up with a good spell of weather following drilling to allow it to get a good start and not sit for several weeks and lose vigour.

Fields dried up well last week and there has been activitity applying spring P and K to cereals and oilseed rape. We have had yet more cold weather over the weekend culminating in temperatures dropping to -10C last night.

Late-sown oats have suffered from frost lift, but it is too early to say what long term damage has occured as the crops have been frozen for so long which has meant that there has been no real spring growth as yet. I have recommennded that we try to roll most oat crops as soon as conditions allow.

The winter linseed has also suffered some frost lift, but in the main the crops I have look well, there is some pidgeon grazing on the linseed, but no where near as bad as on winter oilseed rape, with regards to rape now is the time to have a major push on stopping the pigeons to allow the crop to start getting away.