Farmer Focus: Record BYDV symptoms have got me thinking

We have more barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) symptoms than I have seen before.

I haven’t sprayed any insecticides on wheat for more than 15 years, although we did have Deter (prothioconazole + clothianidin) seed treatment until 2018.

I’ve had very few problems, until now.

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

About the author

Andy Barr

Andy Barr farms 320ha in mid-Kent, aiming to farm as regeneratively as possible. He stopped ploughing 25 years ago and over this time restructured the business with less land farmed and increased the use of contractors, environmental areas and diversification projects.

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The theory was that we must have built up plenty of beneficials and kept them alive in all our environmental patches, but sometimes biological approaches only work up to a point.

We did keep monitoring the wheat for aphids in the autumn and saw none until about December, when a couple appeared, and we used a biological treatment which does, and did, kill the soft bodied aphids but spared other insects.

I’m therefore working on the theory that we now have very-late-season infections. However, if they did come in during January or February, there was no chance of spraying then anyway.

So, due to the possible impossibility of control, and my natural inclination to save as many non-target insects as possible to save the wider food web, I may go back to a BYDV-resistant variety this autumn.

I say go back as I rashly tried all the new resistant barley and wheat varieties that have come out before, only to find their resistance was not only to BYDV but also to yield.

Fortunately, it now looks like we have some decent ones coming through, at least at feed grade, which is about time, given the Australians have had the trait for about 20 years.

I’m in a quandary regarding how much seed and fertiliser I might purchase. The alternative to growing crops has been to increase environmental mixes, which I do enjoy growing.

But my schemes end in December, and I will have no certainty of what will happen to them going forward before I need to make planting decisions for this autumn.

The Central Association of Agricultural Valuers has warned we will lock into a loss by growing crops, so should I just fallow regardless and live off diversified income?