Farmer Focus: Fertiliser reshuffle and yellow rust alert
Mark Stubbs © Phil Weedon With the rain finally stopping at the end of February, we were able to get our fertiliser on.
My original plan was to apply 35kg N/ha and 15kg S/ha at the end of January with the same amount first week of March, but the wet cold weather meant the crop wasn’t growing and the conditions were too sticky.
I reverted to plan B, which was to apply 70kg N/ha and 30kg S/ha in liquid form in the last week of February on both my oilseed rape and wheat.
See also: How two changes can triple the lifespan of SDHI fungicides
About the author
This early application is to get the roots to grow and plants to tiller and put on biomass. Surprisingly, the sprayer travelled really well and hardly made any marks on the field.
That is the advantage of the Lincolnshire Wolds’ well-drained soils.
While I was putting on the fertiliser, I noticed the wheat was starting to develop some early rust as well as a small amount of septoria. This concerned us, so we got our agronomist to have a closer look.
We both decided the pressure was minimal at this stage but we are keeping a close eye on it, waiting for the chemical to be applied which will be 0.75 litres/ha of tebuconozole for rust control and 0.6 litres/ha of prothionconazole.
We don’t really want to do a pre-T0 spray, so we will hold out until then before we apply. It is important to keep both diseases out of the crop as they can take more than 2t/ha of yield away.
Once we had finished the fertiliser it was time to take the dribble bars off the sprayer and to spray off all the fields destined for spring cropping. We used 1.5 litres/ha of Roundup Flex.
I prefer this product as it has the wetter added, which helps the glyphosate get into the plant quicker. Plus, I find it cheaper than using a higher dosage of glyphosate with an additional separate wetter.
We will now wait about four weeks for the green to die off before we start drilling into warmer seed-beds so the spring crops can get away quickly.
