Farmer Focus: Too much N in plant is an ‘eat me’ sign to aphids
Tim Parton © Richard Stanton What a beautiful month October has been so far.
This reminds me of Octobers as a young boy, helping lift potatoes and sugar beet.
I would be getting machines ready in the morning, for the day ahead, feeling the chill of the dawn knowing full well you would be sweating in the afternoon.
After all, these were the days before air conditioning.
See also: How crop nutrition can avoid insect and disease
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Crops have been drilled into wonderful conditions across the country.
However, early drilled crops may have a problem with aphids, especially behind crops such as oilseed rape as these crops can’t utilise all the nitrogen applied to them in the spring due to weather conditions.
They will, therefore, need the right nutrition applied to them in order for plants to utilise the ammonium and nitrate that has been stored in the plant through the growing day.
Without the right nutrition, nitrogen will be left within the plant, which is like a big neon sign to aphids saying: “Come and eat me; I am an unhealthy plant”.
Yet, I suspect a lot of crops will receive the obligatory insecticide to deal with them rather than the nutritional approach.
Cover crops are looking very well here, and some have been foliar fed just to help them along where needed.
This to me is like making a deposit into the bank with a good interest rate (remember those days), one of which will be drawn upon in the spring for the following cash crop.
I see so many times where people do not invest in their cover crops, only to be disappointed with the results.
In a farming system like mine, the cover crop is the central requirement for reducing inputs and getting biology working.
By having a good cover, the amount of nutrition that will become available for the spring crop is amazing and how I am able to reduce inputs.
Its role is also about putting down exudates through roots to feed the livestock beneath the soil.
And keeping the whole food chain alive and kicking, ready for that all-important cash crop in the spring.
Who knows what other challenges will lie ahead?
