Pre-emergence wheat spraying and post-em barley treatments have been going on well under the new 24m tramline system at Dungiven, Co Londonderry, according to James Wray.
That's despite his having to apply them with the soon-to-be replaced Amazone mounted sprayer which has only 21m booms.
"I'm marking by stepping out and then following the drill marks. It's not ideal."
But given the relatively dry conditions and flotation tyres, travelling over the crop instead of the tramlines has posed no problems, he explained.
"I wanted a self-propelled Bateman [with 24m booms], but there's a year and half waiting list. So they are bringing three good second-hand ones over in January, and I'm told I can have first pick."
With meadowgrass the main target the wheats have been receiving an isoproturon plus pendimethalin mix pre-em.
"On the barley, which we do post-em, I've been using IPU/Defy. We've had scorch damage from some other post-ems in the past, but the Defy mix is much kinder to the crop and we've had some excellent results with it."
Hallmark (lambda-cyhalothrin) against BYDV-bearing aphids has been included in all applications.
Even though two of his wheat sowings, after late-lifted potatoes, have yet to emerge he is unconcerned. "There are a lot of very thick and lush crops around here. I'd be a bit worried about winter kill and the high levels of disease they're likely to get.
"Fortunately most of our drilling is quite late because of the potatoes."
So far he has not had to apply any slug pellets and has seen no damage from the pests. "We don't have oilseed rape," he pointed out. "But I've set up some traps."
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