After a great yielding harvest in Cheshire and Lancashire, the next set of crops is now flying into the ground in excellent conditions, as we’ve escaped all the serious rains.

Our inquests into the few cases where some fields failed to yield as well as they should have are nearly complete. Soil analysis invariably confirms that it’s a nutritional issue and this needs correcting straight away to ensure land is restored to full potential. Often the problem is either phosphate or acidity, which has slowly slipped to inadequate levels. So make sure you spend time on these areas and that all suspect cases are thoroughly checked out and corrected.

Oilseed rape crops vary from one leaf up to covering the ground and yet all were sown in August. The slow development of sowings just a few days apart has been marked and some of these smaller crops will not survive when pigeons pitch up. I’m still at a loss to explain their slow pace, since insect activity has been remarkably low. In some cases, I fear that herbicide residues are having some effect.

Early sowings of wheat and barley have all had pre-emergence applications of flufenacet-based mixes, but we are now in transition to treatment peri- or post-emergence. Crops going in now can be left to emerge, unless on ground where grassweeds are a serious problem. We still do not have any significant blackgrass, so its mostly bromes and ryegrass and the main answer is to be careful on sowing date and ensure that cultivations and glyphosate are used carefully to achieve as much early kill as possible.

Ploughing with well-set skims is an essential tool in this armoury and I don’t regard it as costly compared to wasting money on herbicides that don’t work. That doesn’t mean that you can afford to let pressure slip when it comes to grassweed control – so apply very early at emergence and be sure to include an insecticide in all cases except where seed is dressed for insect control.