Slug defences increase
Slug defences increase
Despite heavy use of ploughed-down poultry litter partly to increase soil organic matter, dealing with slugs is not usually a problem.
"Our soils are mostly quite light. Even so we do use pellets on all the oilseed rape after drilling to protect the cotyledons."
This year Draza (methiocarb) has been switched to Judge (thiodicarb), just one decision based on regular meetings with 10 farmers and two agronomists in an SAC/SA discussion group.
"The main reason was to increase the number of pellets per square metre, although chemical choice does matter. The discussion group is a tremendous source of knowledge," he says.
"For the wheat and barley we try to roll everything and only use pellets where absolutely necessary. We have to keep costs under control." *