West: Septoria continues to cause concern
Despite two or three weeks dry weather septoria has continued to express itself in crops, particularly those where timings have been missed. It has become quite evident as the season has progressed that keeping spray intervals tight has been much more important than catching the desired growth stage spot on. This was particularly so with the interval between T1 and T2, where the time between leaf three emerging and the flag leaf fully emerged was as much as five weeks in some crops. Where T2 applications were applied three weeks after T1 we have achieved better disease control than where we waited for GS39.
Since last writing I have been up to the Cereals event. As usual this was a very worthwhile and interesting trip. I do, however, feel that the HGCA and cereal breeders could make a bit more of an effort to present their trial plots in a way that actually reflects how they would be grown on farm. This would give us all a bit more of an idea as to how the varieties might look and perform in a commercial situation. Looking at plots that have been under-fertilised and over-treated with fungicides does not help anybody when trying to make varietal comparisons. I know I am not alone in this view, as everyone I have spoken to who went to the event is saying the same thing. From a Southwest perspective, it is nice to see several new wheat varieties coming through with a strong 6 or 7 rating for septoria resistance. From our point of view this is a key factor when deciding which varieties to multiply for seed.
The winter barley crop continues to impress and looks like it will yield extremely well this year. Rain at the end of last week has started to put a few crops down, but this should be too late to have a major impact on yield, although combining will now be a bit more tricky in these crops. KWS Cassia is looking more diseased than KWS Glacier, California and Florentine. This is hardly surprising given its poor resistance to rhynchosporium, but despite the higher levels of disease in the variety it still looks like it will yield well and no doubt will continue to be popular with growers next year.
The first of the oilseed rape crops have reached the point where a desiccant should be applied. There is, however, quite a spread of maturity between crops this year, so the period for desiccating the crop could be quite extended. The potential of the crop looks quite good, with pods filled well and very little evidence of any disease.
Spring barley crops continue to be either very good or very poor, with very few crops falling into the middle ground. The thunder rain at the end of last week has challenged quite a few spring barleys, with some having lodged in parts of fields. Going down this early is bound to have an effect and much will now depend on the weather that now follows.
