Farmer Focus: Aphid pressure too high to ignore
Richard Harris © Emily Fleur Daylight hours are now at a premium, which means winter is coming (along with the deficit of rain we didn’t get this year).
Local rainfall data indicates we have had 360mm since 1 October – it’s safe to say things are a little saturated.
Soils have taken the rain well, with no rills or gullies appearing on any of our steeper fields.
See also: Farmer Focus: People at the top just don’t understand
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Fortunately, a gap appeared in the in early November weather, allowing us to apply our autumn herbicide and plant nutrition.
It was a decent test for the flufenacet and diflufenican as the annual meadowgrass, brome and broad-leaved weeds were starting to establish well.
A mix of zinc, molybdenum, manganese, boron, sulphur, magnesium and nitrogen should help plant immunity and establishment this winter.
We have been insecticide free on the farm for the past four years and we are trying hard to keep it that way, but this year we have been swamped by aphids.
It’s been a quandary on how seriously to take the vast numbers of winged and wingless aphids in the wheat this autumn.
They were present across every field in every patch I looked at. Vast numbers were also identified in the AHDB suction trap results at Starcross, which forced us to apply an insecticide to the wheat.
Although I believe only 20% of aphids carry barley yellow dwarf virus, the pressure seemed too high to ignore.
With rising growing costs, yield is more important than ever, and if we can ensure a 9-10t/ha crop plus straw sales, there will be plenty of income around to justify these growing costs and leave us with some real profit to play with.
While we are in this period of high inflation and extreme volatility, some of our regenerative agriculture principles such as cutting out insecticides and fungicides and heavily reducing nitrogen might have to be parked to ensure we get a viable yield without the risk.
