While the recent rain is welcome, it means fusarium pressure will be high in wheat, and some maize crops have been washed away in the thunderstorms.

Thoughts are turning to next season and how to manage input costs, including sulphur fertiliser and avoiding unnecessary cultivations.

West: Neil Potts

Matford Arable (Devon)

Drier-than-normal weather continues to dominate the season, although most places have seen enough rain.

There are, however, pockets of ground that have missed most of the rainfall and has had as little as 25mm since the beginning of March.

The consequence of the lower rainfall has been that disease pressure has been lower than normal and the fungicide programmes have successfully controlled disease, rather than just reducing it, as is the case for most seasons in this region.

See also: Cereals 2022: Will farmers drop high-cost, high-risk crops?

We have, however, had quite a bit of showery weather since the wheat ears have fully emerged and started to flower, so most crops are receiving a T3 fungicide.

With the spraying season coming to an end, anything we can do to influence crop performance is also drawing to a close.

On the whole, crops are looking very well and full of potential. All we need now is good levels of light intensity without it getting too hot, and there should be a more than presentable harvest on the way.

Drying costs

With energy costs as high as they are, it would be nice to think that late July and August will be the hot, sunny months they are supposed to be, rather than some of the wettest months of the year, as they have been over the past few years. This will at least keep drying costs to a minimum.

Since last writing, one or two parishes have had intensive thunderstorms, delivering an inch or more of rain in less than an hour. While very welcome for most crops, this has proved problematic for some maize plants, which have been washed out of the ground in some places.

This underlines that, whatever you do to mitigate against soil washing, if you have freak weather there is little that can be done to prevent it, other than not cultivating and growing a crop.

I think the next 12 months will be as challenging as the past 12, with everyone now facing the prospect of growing crops with higher input prices. We can only hope the value of the crop output remains at a level that will support the higher input costs.

As no one really knows what is around the corner, this will be a bit of a leap of faith, but over my years in the industry we have always found a way forward, and our farmers have proved time and again that they can be very reactive and innovative bunch of people when the need arises.

North: David Martindale

Arable Alliance (Yorkshire)

At last, some good quantities of rain have fallen in the past three weeks. All crops have benefited from the fresh moisture, especially the spring-sown ones.

As grain filling is well under way in winter cereals, and fast approaching in spring crops, some long periods of cool, sunny weather would be welcome.

Winter wheat crops have reached the end of flowering, with T3 fungicides recently applied. Fusarium pressure will be high, as there were significant amounts of rain during flowering.

Even well-timed, robust T3 fungicides do not give 100% control, so expect to see symptoms appear in the next couple of weeks.

Most spring barley crops have awns or ears emerging. These crops have lower tiller numbers than ideal due to the dry spring limiting their production.

Unfortunately, barley cannot compensate as well as wheat for lower ear numbers. However, canopies are currently clean so, hopefully, solar radiation interception can be maximised.

The T2 fungicides are currently being applied. Their importance is more significant this year as recent rains have increased the pressure on wet weather-loving diseases such as rhynchosporium.

Spring oat crops range from very patchy to superb. Panicles are emerging and fungicides are being applied to protect against mildew and crown rust.

Some mildew is present at the base of crops, but the T1 fungicide has limited its development.

Beans

Winter beans are at the end of flowering. Canopies have grown significantly since it has rained, and pod set looks good.

The T2 fungicide mix has recently been applied to protect against chocolate spot and bean rust. The former thrives in warm and wet weather, so the T2 fungicide has been timely.

Spring beans have similarly improved and are now in full flower. Downey mildew infection levels have been exceptionally high this year. Even those varieties with good resistance have suffered high amounts of infection, and often exceeded threshold levels.

Black bean aphids are beginning to colonise in large numbers on a small percentage of plants. It is good to see beneficial insects already attacking aphids so, hopefully, they can reduce populations rather than having to rely on an insecticide.

Weed control from pre-emergence herbicides has been good in maize. Follow-up post-emergence herbicides have been required to control surviving grassweeds, volunteer oilseed rape, polygynums and volunteer potatoes.

In some fields no post-emergence herbicide has been required, which has provided a useful saving.

With harvest not too far away, attention will soon move to the desiccation of crops, most notably oilseed rape.

With the high price of glyphosate and many oilseed rape crops looking very even, there is likely to be increased interest in direct cutting without desiccation.

However, this approach is unlikely to find favour with growers reluctant to wait for the crop to mature naturally.

South: Tod Hunnisett

AICC (Sussex)

We are coming to the end of what has been, once again, a very interesting season. Which begs the question, what is a “normal” season?

I believe it was a bloke called Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is when people do the same thing over and over again and expect things to change. We mostly do the same thing every year and get a different result every time.

The dry and (unlike last year) non-frosty April put crops into acceleration mode. I’ve never known a year where spring cereals went from GS31 to ears emerging over a two-week period.

Then the rain came, and spring wheat and barley that had looked thin and anaemic turned into super-lush crops with their ears out, leaving me hoping we won’t get a hailstorm before harvest.

Winter wheat flowered a good 10 days earlier than “normal” which, ironically, coincided with the rain. That prompted the correct amount of very expensive nitrogen to go on after all. Even though that particular nitrogen wasn’t that expensive, having been bought last year. Farmers, eh?

Rapeseed

Winter oilseed rape is looking revoltingly promising. With a fantastic, long flowering period and good podfill, even the crops drilled after the middle of August have begun to look respectable.

My worry is that with the current projected price and the way this year’s crop looks, it will be grown inappropriately next year without people realising that flea beetle won’t have disappeared.

If you are going to grow it, get it in early and get it in thick. Ignore the nonsense about canopy; it will sort itself out. It always does.

As it happens, driving around the south of England, things look very pleasing. I did, however, think the same thing this time last year. 

East: Ben Pledger

Farmacy (Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire)

As we edge towards another harvest, the majority of applications to combinable crops are pretty much ticked off the list.

Some spring crops such as peas and spring beans still have a final fungicide to apply in places. In the main, tebuconazole or metconazole will be partnered with azoxystrobin in these situations.

Pea moth traps are being monitored to identify when thresholds are met, and treatment will be in the form of lambda-cyhalothrin. Pea aphids are also being found in certain crops and are being treated with pirimicarb where necessary.

Looking ahead to harvest, there are a number of things to think about. Weed areas in the current crops need mapping and a strategy  must be implemented to deal with these areas to reduce populations.

Soil pits

Once the combine has been through and any straw has been removed, the first point of call should be to dig soil pits, before charging in with cultivation machinery. This is even more important this year considering the price of diesel.

Identifying any areas of compaction or other soil structure issues, their depth, and setting the cultivation equipment accordingly can save a lot of time and diesel and, ultimately, maximise yield for the following crop.

Cropping planning for the 2023 harvest has already begun. We are keeping in mind which varieties to plant, and working out approximate nitrogen fertiliser requirements for those crops to formulate a crop nutrition plan so that fertiliser inputs can be purchased when individual buyers deem it the right.

Nitrogen fertilisers containing sulphur are trading at a large premium over straight nitrogen fertilisers, and thought is being put into other ways of applying sulphur to the crop if none is applied with the nitrogen.

Kieserite, polysulphate and straight sulphur fertilisers can all be considered as alternatives.