Recently by Paul Sweeney

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 sunshine and warmth please?

T1 applications are virtually complete on all cereals and weed control has been excellent, including where this was combined with fungicides.  Disease is under control so far, mainly targeting septoria, but intervals cannot be allowed to slip much beyond three weeks in these conditions.  Timing is almost as important as products and rates - you cannot compensate for going late by whacking more on, it doesn't work.

We pushed on with nitrogen in early April thinking it was going to be needed if it stayed dry. Time will tell whether much has been washed away and if we need a top-up later in May.

While the rest of the country may be desperate for rain, we're just grateful for a bit of dry.  Ground conditions have improved enough for nitrogen to be applied to most oilseed rape crops and the few late-sown wheats that we've got. 

Most cereals are very leafy, but don't think that they are much further developed than the date and day length would suggest. However, more warm days will move them forward quickly. All the nitrogen is in the leaf canopy, so once they start growing rapidly, they will find no soil reserves and yellow-off. That may be a good thing for some but I can't believe that they will shed many tillers as a result, because they are so strong.  Therefore the challenge in 2012 will be to keep them all upright untill harvest.

This all means that our well-laid plans of T0 beginning about 20th March is already out of the window. Applications will start this week, along with aphid control in many crops. We have had insufficient frost to see off aphids and they can be found easily together with emerging gout fly. Rely on natural predators? Not this early in the season. Aphids and the threat of barley yellow dwarf virus is still as serious as ever and they need taking out.

At last, a nice bit of winter though there's no promise of it lasting, but let's hope. Up until last week, we'd only had seven frosts with only one before Christmas - on 7th November.  Therefore, we have to expect significant aphid numbers and a serious threat of BYDV - unless this bit of winter lasts and particularly if we get serious cold without snow cover. It's not been cold enough yet and snow is coming.

Oilseed Rape crops have thick, strong deep roots and a nice rosette from which to develop new growth.  Thankfully, all our efforts to control Cabbage Root Fly appear to have worked as all crops inspected since New Year are free from this damaging pest.  However, I am still expecting to see crops which were not treated in autumn taken out in spring - as happened last year.  Phoma & light leaf spot levels are very low so, despite all the commercial hype, they don't require any treatment.

Fine sowing conditions for many in the North West, with plenty of moisture for good establishment, has seen most farmers finish sowing and some are sprayed-up already.

Most of Cheshire has never stopped and most of the drilling that's left is after maize and potatoes. Further north, the picture isn't so rosy. Growers in Lancashire who were delayed with harvest are suffering the knock-on effect of delayed sowing, as it's been too wet in the last fortnight and more rain is coming now.

The hidden menace for most is insect pests - cabbage root fly on OSR and aphids carrying BYDV on cereals.