With his Berks autumn sowing completed Nigel Horne (left) has just embarked on the main spraying programme at Catmore Farm, West Ilsley.
First off was 2litres/ha of simazine on the recently drilled home-saved Wizard beans. "We went over first with the Simba Cultipress just to level the ground," said Mr Horne.
The most pressing subsequent operation for the Knight airjet mounted sprayer, due to start this morning once the sharp frost had cleared, was to apply 0.4litres/ha of Sanction (flusilazole) to tackle phoma in the oilseed rape.
"We usually get away with one autumn fungicide. We'll add 2litres/ha of Kerb where we know we have blackgrass."
After slow establishment much of the crop is not as encouraging as it should be, he noted. "The problem is that it's not very forward and it's uneven.
"I've already mentally written off 10% and that won't get any more inputs. We've been lucky that until this morning's frost we've had a pretty mild autumn. But there are huge numbers of pigeons about."
Next in line will be the wheat which, on agronomist Steve Cook's advice, will mostly get 2.4kg/ha of Tolurex (chlorotoluron) granules plus 3litres/ha of Stomp (pendimethalin) in 80litres/ha of water.
"Unfortunately we haven't been able to get the granular version of pendimethalin, Bunker, this year," said Mr Horne. "It makes filling much easier."
Pre-em treatments are only rarely used as the farm's policy of ploughing in the past and later drilling has left the land relatively clear of blackgrass, he explained.
Only on two fields will the approach differ to deal with the weed. "There we'll be using IPU granules with Hawk and oil because we want a bit more contact action. We used IPU granules for the first time last year.
"Atlantis might figure later."
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