West: First hint of spring as drilling begins
A welcome burst of warmth and drying winds have allowed a start to drilling of spring beans on lighter land. The clay soils are still cold and wet and need to be treated with care – patience is essential.
Oilseed rape crops generally have good plant populations – even though they look ragged as they emerge from winter. Roots and stems are well formed, but there has been a loss of foliage from pigeon feeding. Nitrogen top dressing has started on winter rape, and there are many tools to help determine optimum nitrogen levels. But we tend not to drastically alter from levels that have delivered good yields in past years.
Soil test reports on wheat fields indicate moderate soil nitrogen levels this spring, but forward crops will have taken up significant amounts of nitrogen. With hindsight we can see that many crops were underfertilized last year. Those who obtained low proteins in their milling wheats will be well aware that these crops needed additional nitrogen. With good premiums for milling wheat, there is every incentive to achieve a reasonable grain nitrogen level. Some contracts do not allow late liquid urea treatments, so there is a need to calculate the optimum bag nitrogen rate. We have various tools to help us. We can’t ignore N-Max restrictions, but previous yields and protein results can be used to justify treatments. Unfortunately, several new milling wheat varieties have been introduced with low protein levels – this could be a challenge.
Once soils warm up we will be catching up with contact blackgrass herbicides on wheats. With good control last year, we hope to get similar results this spring. We all know the best conditions for application – often they are not under our control. Luckily the autumn herbicide stacks have worked well at reducing the population.
On the subject of stacking, we now need to stack wheat fungicides from at least three different groups. It used to be so much easier before resistance became such an issue with both weeds and diseases. It means that multi-way tank mixes are here to stay.
Light leaf spot is a topic of discussion on oilseed rape. The risk is higher than usual, and some fungicides will be applied soon along with trace elements. The prospect of having to apply up to four spring fungicides on oilseed rape for light leaf spot, canopy management and sclerotinia etc. is very unpalatable – especially with the current rape price. It is putting a question mark for some over rape’s place in the rotation.
