Bang goes the autumn chemical treatment? Not quite, but low ground pressure tyres were certainly needed last week as Jonathan Cole took a break from spraying to check an anti-pigeon banger at Shipdham, Norfolk while applying a herbicide/fungicide mix to Apex oilseed rape. The relatively cheap-seeded variety performs better than Winner on High House Farm”s heavy cold ground, provided the pests are kept at bay, he says. “Pigeons definitely seem to have increased in this area since foot-and-mouth, which stopped people going onto the land to shoot them.”