Recently by David Cairns

After another 25mm of rainfall over the weekend and with more rain forecast for this week, I am waiting for the first comment wishing it to stop. That aside our crops have greened up fantastically in the last week to fortnight as they pick up some much needed nitrogen and move on.

Crops look fantastic from the road, but maybe when you get into them they are all a tiller short. The crops looked similar at the same stage last season around here and they went on to yield well because they got adequate sunshine in June. So now we have had a bit of moisture, we could do with some sunshine and warmth, but not too much.

Winter barley may be starting to turn and I am just hoping that with heavy rain and winds that they remain standing until harvest. I don't think that harvest will be much earlier than normal with this crop, but a lot depends on weather from now on.

For the past few weeks everyone has been suggesting miracle cures to combat the drought and relieve stress on crops as they all went funny colours, particularly spring crops.

But eventually the only cure arrived in the name of 30-60mm of rain across most of my area, which has, in general, come just in the nick of time. But with one relief comes another problem in that we have been having strong winds again. As I look out of window trees are bending in wind which is drying some of the much protected moisture from the ground and limiting fertiliser spreading and spraying opportunities.

Winter barley is now mostly in full ear and most crops look full of potential with good ear counts and potential grain sites. Moisture will hopefully allow a decent grain fill. Disease levels are low and most growers have now shut the gate on this crop.

Despite all crops needing a bit of moisture they are moving quickly through growth stages. Now that wind has dropped we have managed to get outstanding fertiliser and spraying jobs done ready for the next round.

Winter wheat is at or around GS30 and with some approaching GS31 any main doses of nitrogen should go on now to ensure availability of nitrogen when moisture comes. As we approach the final leaf three T1 timing, do not be tempted to cut back rates of fungicide as there are some reports of yellow rust creeping in to Oakley and there is a lot of latent septoria lying on lower leaves.

As we approach the timing where we are protecting the yield building leaves, strong triazoles will need to be used. Our recommendations are based around epoxiconazole on rust susceptible varieties, including pyraclostrobin into the most susceptible varieties as a lot of these crops will receive SDHI chemistry at the T2 timing. The T1 timing will see some more plant growth regulator included based around chlormequat and Moddus (trinexapac-ethyl).

After a couple of weeks of inactivity, everyone had been wondering whether when we would be able to travel on the ground. But a couple of days of dry weather has brought renewed optimism. The fertiliser spinners and seed drills are out again - and there's even a hint of sprayers being warmed up.

Any remaining autumn crops that have not received a sniff of nitrogen are now getting some applied to try and get some tillers moving after the last couple of dry springs. Holding off with the first dose certainly does not work. The main dose will still go on at GS30/31 but we are some way off that yet.

Winter barley is really starting to green up and any manganese deficient areas or parts of fields which have suffered with frost are showing up. We are trying to encourage growers to go over with manganese and a tidy up fungicide based on a triazole/morpholine with or without cyprodinil.

Despite the harsh winter, crops in my area are looking positively healthy and almost like they are growing. For a number of crops, I managed to get an autumn application of manganese on and this is really showing now in terms of crop health.

Over the last two seasons, we have seen exceptionally dry springs. So I am advising growers to get an application of nitrogen on cereals early, but not exceeding 40-50kg/ha. This is to ensure we get maximum tiller retention, and to limit the amount of leachable nitrogen in the soil profile. I would rather see nitrogen go on at three splits to get the best product efficiency.

For crop protection, there is no activity at the moment other than people planning their fungicide regimes for this season and where they are maybe going to fit the new SDHI chemistry in.

In the last month as usual spray days have been few and far between with this weekend's rain finally making sure we dont get on with any more applications this season. That said I am very happy with crops going in to the winter and travelling up and down the country, I think we have faired the best this autumn in my area.

Wheats are varying between 1-2 tillers and some of the later drilled crops are only at one leaf in fact some of the later drilled crops have been quite slow to get out of the ground mainly due to a lot of these crops not getting rolled. Slug pressure has been low and like I said earlier, most crops are going in to winter in good fettle.

As last season we did push on with pre/peri-emegence herbicides and again seems to have done a very good job although there is more crop damage this season than normal, mainly due to soft growth picking up herbicide. But as  reminded one grower, it is a herbicide and it does show it is working!

Harvest is more or less over. We've had some deluges of rain in the past week and we will have to see how this has affected quality in the later-harvested crops

Now that fields are cleared the focus is very much on establishing next years cereal crop. Seed-beds have been tremendous so far, but again after the wet weather they may require a bit more patience.

I am seeing a lot of growers investing in seed treatments for disease and pest control as the benefits become more accepted. Crops that have been drilled are emerging really quickly as soils have sufficient moisture and are relatively warm.

Unlike other parts of the country the shortage of flufenacet products isn't as major a problem as we have other options available as our targets are mainly meadow grass and broadleaved weeds. We have saved our flufenacet products for the fields with history of brome and blackgrass and will be going early post-emergence on other fields.

Unlike last year where harvest seemed to happen, this year it has been very staged with winter barley done quickly then a delay while rapes matured then slowly we are munching our way through spring barley and wheat.

First wheats on heavy ground appear to be yielding exceptionally well with Viscount and Oakley performing well again although the plants are one or two shoots short. They appear to have compensated in the ear, bearing in mind most of these crops would be late in uptaking nitrogen, it is something to think about for future seasons.

Now the mind is being focused on future cropping and those growers who had winter barley have managed to put rape back in to good seedbeds. In general in the north, rape is best established in August which has been possible after winter barley, but some of our rape following spring barley and wheat will creep in to September.

Weed control in rape is fairly straight forward, I will be using quinmerac + metazachlor as this takes care of most of the weed spectrum. This is applied pre emergence or at expanded cotyledon stage depending on establishment technique bear in mind the new label restrictions on metazachlor if growing rape in tight rotations.

Crops are now where you would expect them to be, despite being behind most of the season. Winter barley is fully flowered and ripening, winter wheat ears are out, spring barley has awns appearing and oilseed rape is at full pod emergence. Oilseed rape is looking really well this season due mainly to good establishment.

As crops start to finish there is still low disease pressure and some growers are questioning validity of a final fungicide but the investment has been made in the crop to this stage and every bit of green leaf needs to be retained as long as possible to maximise yield and quality so I think it will still be worthwhile last year was a low disease pressure year and a full fungicide programme still gave reward.

In winter wheat I see the T3 spray as not only for grain quality protection but also a top up of flag leaf fungicide to maintain green leaf area we will therefore be using a prothioconazole or tebuconazole triazole in conjunction with a strobilurin to finish these crops off as Yellow Rust is still at the back of my mind and hopefully this will allow maximum grain fill.

At long last after frosts and hail showers (yes I was scraping frost off car and standing in white tramlines) some decent moisture and heat has arrived with a couple of 10-20mm spells of rain accompanied by some heat this should at last see our crops start to freshen up and put down some sensible growth.

Despite lack of mositure and heat crops have been going through the growth stages as this is dictated by day length and most winter wheat now has final leaf 2 emerged and flag leaf can be found easily so would anticipate flag leaf fully emerged in next 10-14 days so some spray intervals between T1 and T2 will be short but I would urge growers not to make their decision based on when flag leaf is fully emerged and not the time since last spray as this leaf contributes a massive amount to yield and when emerged is unprotected. Product choice will depend on variety and disease pressure but will need to be a 3/4 doze of Triazole and Chlorothalonil with probably the inclusion of a strobilurin for rust and greening effect also any growth regulation needs to be completed at this time but as a lot of growers in this area have a value on straw dont think it will be widespread.

Winter barley has been through all sorts of trials and tribulations this season but again despite not a lot of height is starting to come into awn emergence now so we will be looking to apply our final spray to this crop there appears to be low levels of Rynchosporium around so product choice will be based on Prothioconazole and Strobilurin with addition of Chlorothalonil for Ramularia protection mainly to try and prevent disease build up for spring crop. Although this crop is not the most popular in some areas it is essential to us not only for the market available but also gives a spread on harvest, straw for livestock and an excellent entry for Oilseed rape.

Which brings me on to Oilseed rape the big question this season has been should i put a Sclerotinia spray on this season or not and we have had various prediction/decision based tools out there to help but in the end this is an insuramce spray and just about all our rapes have had or are about to get a flower spray and if a high risk period continues then some will even get a second application. Rape in this area is looking superb and every bit of yield is worth protecting.

Spring barley has welcomed the recent rainfall and is moving on rapidly we now have a flush of weeds so herbicides can be applied to get target and hopefully not stress crop. Disease management will depend on variety but will be based around Triazole/Strobilurin low dose and mildew will be addressed in susceptible varieties.

Spring Beans are coping with Pea and Bean Weevil attacks and as they move to flower bud stage we will consider the disease control options in this crop. Finally a crop that is forgotten about on farm but essential in this area is grassland and with recent rainfall and warmth it is an ideal opportunity to control perennial weeds.

Hopefully as crops now come out of winter I did not think I would say that in May we will see some sensible growth.