I think we are in a better place than a month ago! Most spring sowing was completed three weeks ago, some of this was replacing yet more deceased winter oilseed rape crops that refused to grow.

Most forward spring barley crops have just about reached the end of tillering, but most crops are at early tillering. Spring oats are at the 3-4 leaf stage and are growing despite the poor conditions.  I say poor conditions, but we did have a glimpse of summer the weekend before when the temperatures got to over 20C! Now back to normal.

With today’s temperatures struggling to get over double figures, coinciding with yet more westerly winds that are cold. We have also had somewhere in the region of 10-15mm of rain over the last week depending on location within the county which has also helped matters somewhat.

I have never known a season like this one with many crops much later than normal and even where they are at some sort of normal growth stage they are all short (such as wheat with flag leaf starting to poke out, but not above the top of my wellies).

Crop condition seems primarily to be  linked with fertility of the ground and being able to access nitrogen which has not been solely supplied from the bag. This allowed these crops to establish quite well and achieve reasonable ground cover which in turn has enabled them to keep what moisture is available and probably allowed the soil temperature to rise quicker than those crops which are somewhat thin. Because of this crops are very variable some good some middling and some depressingly poor!

Winter oats have coped surprisingly well with the conditions and as with the spring oats, they are growing well and look to have potential. We have been applying magnesium with most applications when going through the crops due to the dry conditions. Most have applied all the nitrogen now albeit over more splits than normal to try to keep crops growing without running the risk of losing any if we were to get a deluge.

Winter barley crops are starting to push flag leaves out, where the crops are stressed the flag leaf is fully out, despite the dry conditions the lighter land crops look in better condition than the heavier land, I suspect because they were not sat in water all winter. Will start applying T2 from next week once the awns are showing

Those crops of winter rape that survived are now pretty much all in flower and as ever look the best they will probably look all year. Pollen beetle numbers have not in the main reached the threshold although numbers did increase early last week due to the heat wave.

However, each time we have had some warm weather it has gone colder fairly swiftly, stopping any massive influxes. Having said this we did treat a few crops where there is very little, if any, branching. Some winter crops are more akin to a spring rape and flowering has been slow to get going.

I spotted some seed weevil towards the end of last week and the forward crops are starting to drop petals which with the showers are sticking to the leaves so we will be looking to apply a mid flowering fungicide towards the end of this week, hopefully, by which time the howling gales will have stopped. I don’t think lodging will be an issue this year! And certainly the theory about not getting crops too thick to achieve a good yield will be put to the test this year with many not much more than waist height and in flower

My forward wheat crops (drilled before the end of September monsoon) all have leaf two fully out with the flag leaf poking through on the main stem. Rightly or wrongly due to the lack of any opportunity to get a T0 on, we used new SDHI chemistry for the T1 on these crops and will follow up with a T2 using the same chemistry next week (21 days after T1 ).

There was another batch of T1 applications on more wheat at the beginning of last week as Leaf 3 had finally made an appearance, with the bulk of what was left to start at the end of last week through into the beginning of this week. But once again the weather has not helped with high winds or showers since last Wednesday putting a stop to best laid plans.

All what I call the “later” crops have had a standard T1 with the intention of using new SDHI products at T2, as I am convinced that even if full yield potential is not achievable they will pull the yield up. Yellow rust can be found on some crops (Oakley unsurprisingly), but it has not got any worse and I have used strobulrins in the T1 mix to ensure the problem does not get any worse.

Septoria is visible on the lower leaves which is where I want it to stay. I am hoping that the later crops will accelerate and pop flag leaves out in less than 21 days after the T1 (we live in hope, otherwise I can see harvest being late )

 I am sure that if we get some good growing weather between now and harvest that there will be some good crops of wheat, oilseed rape and barley and I only need to think back to 2011 when crops were thin and we were expecting a disaster. But the growing conditions meant crops turned out far better than we were expecting.