Recently by Bryce Rham

Since my last report we have had further bouts of snow and sub zero temperatures, this has severely restricted any field work. Despite the weather the ground conditions today are pretty good particularly on the min till ground.

Manganese deficiency is an issue on lighter land on quite a few cereal crops (I think partly due to mild frost lift), will apply managnese at the 1st opportunity

All carbetamide applications to winter OSR have been made during the odd occasion when soil conditions have allowed. Pigeon control has been at the top of most clients agenda with the effort having paid off, where little or no control fields now look pretty bare and yield penalties will have been incurred.

Later-sown/backward crops will have low rates of N+So3 applied this week if conditions allow.Will also have a go at applying remaining graminicides+fungicide this week. Crops generally seem to have come through the winter well and the 'big'pre christmas crops now look more manageable, we will not apply any N to these crops for at least two-three weeks.

We finally had green fields last week and ground conditions were just getting to the point where we could travel. But, Friday afternoon saw snow flurries and about an inch fell. we then had sub zero temperatures over the weekend and yet more snow fell on Sunday, so now we're back to square one.

Winter OSR: Some crawler was applied last week (fortunately there is no Kerb on farm to apply). Rape crops generally seem to have come through the cold snap intact and have opened up well, so as long as conditions allow we should be able to get the crawler to the target. Where there is no pigeon control the crops are being severely grazed, even where control options are in place it is a struggle but will pay off in the long run.

What a difference a year makes. Apart from about 200 acres of wheat to go in after fodder beet, everyone is drilled up. The initial 20mm of rain four weeks ago dried up quickly, but consecutive weekends of substantial rain and rainfall during the last week has finally wet soils enough to kick residuals into action.

The dry weather seems to have affected barley the least.  Crops emerged within seven days of drilling and are still growing very quickly, but protracted drilling range means I have barley from two leaves to four tillers. Bar a couple of hundred acres, all has been sprayed, primarily with chlorotoluron + flufenacet/pendimethalin. A few early crops got quite severe mildew but frosts from three weeks ago put this to rest.

Later-sown oilseed rape crops have now fully emerged. Nitrogen was applied to these soon after the first rainfall and they are now growing away well. Crops with sludge/poultry litter and slurry are too big and thick - they are probably at GAI 3 already.  Most were sown at 60 seeds/sq m and could have been dropped to 30.

Prothioconazole + tebuconazole have been applied in an attempt to carry out some canopy management whilst ensuring good control of phoma/light leaf spot - there is evidence of both albeit not at threshold levels. It is the end of October/first week November and ideal conditions to apply - it's too warm for Kerb as yet.

Due to very dry conditions early on I have the unusual scenario of wheat from one true leaf to four tillers in the same field. Growth of these crops is slow due to lost vigour whilst trying to cope with the dry conditions. Later sown crops are more even and growing well.

Virtually all crops have been sprayed. I have moved away from flufenacet-based products in the last few weeks and onto Othello (mesosulfuron + iodosulfuron + diflufenican). Most early-drilled crops irrespective of variety have mildew present but it is not getting any worse.

Blackgrass is emerging very quickly in a few wheat crops and will be sprayed with Atlantis/Horus (mesosulfuron + iodosulfuron) soon. I also have a few crops with bad brome which I will probably try with Broadway Star (pyroxsulam + florsulam) either this month or next. I'm guilty of not using any last season, primarily because so little spraying was done in the autumn and we had to control annual meadowgrass in the spring, but will probably use a lot more this season.

Like most other areas, Shropshire has seen five weeks with no rain until Tuesday night when most of the county had approximately 20mm.

Thankfully, this got down to seed which had been sitting in dust for a similar period of time.

Drilling has carried on apace with some farms drilled up and seed-beds in the main pretty good.

Winter barley is 90% drilled with most forward crops at GS21. All are looking a bit tender and would like some cold nights to harden them off before we start spraying, which I would like to start this coming week.

What a harvest. Not as bad as last year but even so a battle from beginning to end, although it has been worse in some other areas. In a few days pretty much all of my clients combines will be put away for another year.

Winter barley yields were not as good as last year with spring barley yields varying from good on the early cut crops to poor on late crops due to loss of heads and major brackling.

Wheat yields were generally good - 11.25t/ha plus on the best fields - but there were some very poor second wheat yields of below 7.5t/ha.

Oilseed rape has been the surprise crop with very respectable yields varying from 3.75 to 5t/ha averages, which I think goes to show we are getting crops in too early and still too thick.