September-drilled winter wheat and oats have had a tremendous start. Crops emerged evenly and are now ready for a herbicide application.

JB Diego winter wheat will receive a combination of Hurricane (diflufenican) and isoproturon with deltamethrin added to control aphids. If the mild weather continues aphids may need additional control, so I will wait and see. If not, we will return in the second week of November with Karate (lambda-cyhalothrin) which will see it through to the spring.

Mascani winter oats will receive Bacara (diflufenican + flurtamone) with deltamethrin insecticide.

The dry autumn has also allowed us to spread 5t/ha of calcium carbonate lime on some of the land destined for spring barley. This lime will be acting by next spring in the growing crops.

We will also spread granular lime which helps make the nutrients in the broadcasted fertiliser compound more available to the growing plant. This is to correct slightly lower pH levels on some fields that do not warrant bulk lime yet. Keeping fields at the optimum neutral pH makes the most of applied fertiliser.

Fast, even emergence is the key to early-sown spring barley if high yields are to be achieved. Some of the winter cereals were sown using a demonstration Vaderstad Spirit drill. The aggressive front discs till and loosen the ground, which is then packed by the large wheels. The seed is then placed in the loose surface created by the disc coulters.

This combination will suit the Clonroche series soils of this area which need to be as firm as possible while not capping the surface, restricting emergence.

The drill’s impressive performance in all conditions this autumn has shown it is the ideal drill for our min till system on light to medium soils particularly the spring sown crops. A 9m Vaderstad Spirit drill will be arriving in February in time for the spring campaign.

• More information from other Farmer Focus writers
• More columns from Philip Reck