Farmer Focus: Recent rain showers have saved crops

We have had more than 55mm of rain, which has been a saviour for crops, especially the cereals as they were losing tillers fast.

It has been a roller-coaster year so far. From starting the year with a high potential yield, to April showing a huge drop in yield, back to now having a high potential again.

Although we have lost tillers planting at 550 seeds/sq m, it means we still have high plant numbers which will translate into having high ear numbers at harvest.

See also: New wheat variety shows resilience over a testing season

About the author

Mark Stubbs

Mark Stubbs manages his 700ha family arable farm in Lincolnshire, in partnership with his parents. The farm grows wheat, malting barley, oilseed rape, linseed and cover crops. Mark won the highest yielding winter wheat crop in the 2024 YEN awards.

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I am also averaging 24 spikelets in the grain heads when I open up the plant, which is higher than my normal 20 spikelets.

If the weather plays ball from now to harvest we should have 12t/ha plus in our wheat crops.

We are later with our wheat on the Lincolnshire Wolds than a lot of the country, with the flag leaf only just fully out.

So our T2 programme is going to be Miravis Alpha (pydiflumetopen 62g/l) at a rate of 1.3 litres/ha.

This is to give protection from Septoria, which although low with this rainfall will explode soon.

We will be adding Prosaro (prothioconazole 125g/l + tebuconazole 125g/l) at a rate of 0.6 litres/ha.

This will help with the rust we have had all season. And to give it a bit of extra power we will add Tenstar (Tebuconazole 250g/l) at a rate of 0.3 litres/ha.

Hopefully, this will be our last application of fungicide but we are planning a T3 if it is needed later on in the season.

Because I planted my oilseed rape at the beginning of September it is still in flower.

This has also worked out well as we had a lot of frost in April which can take out up to 0.5t/ha of yield if your crop is in full flower during this period.

My variety of Avenger has podded well and is well-branched, so it looks like it has potential. But as we all know, with oilseed rape you never know until you harvest it.

Let’s hope we all have the right weather from now until harvest so we all have a good harvest with high yields.