Arable
Decent harvest prospects as combines roll into crops
• Hot temperatures buoy hopes for harvest • High disease pressure on cereal crops
E
season and high disease pressure. Combines rolled into barley in the third week of July with crops coming off the fi eld at less than 14% moisture in Suffolk. Oilseed rape followed days later on some farms although yields have again been variable this year. With much wheat yet to come, agronomists said achieving yield po- tential would be dependent on the spray programme used following an- other year of lumpy weather which made it hard to get on top of problems at the best of times. A wet May brought high foliar dis- ease pressure to cereal crops – with winter wheat experiencing the high- est level of septoria tritici since 2012. Yellow rust has also been a problem although easier to control.
Changing outlook BASF agronomy manager Andrew Smooker said: “Visually it did appear to be lower disease pressure at one stage of the season, but then the weather changed markedly and so did the out- look in the fi eld.
• Some confi dence returns for oilseed rape “As ever it is a mixed picture now, especially because there are a range of drilling dates and fungicide timings and some growers with bigger spray intervals than others. But there is cer- tainly an aggressive disease pressure out there.”
arly reports suggest decent ce- real yields on many farms this harvest despite a challenging
Agronomist Matt Keane reports that the varieties expected to get yel- low rust in got it at various stages throughout the season. But in many cases on most farms it remained very controllable, he added. Growers saw much more Septo- ria in their crops but most managed to control it with their fungicide pro- grammes. There was certainly good control on farms where T1 and T2 were robust, he added.
Air of optimism “Our trials have given growers the op- portunity to see the level of disease on untreated plots and on plots with dif- fering spray programmes, as on farm they have nothing to compare their programmes to.”
Buoyant prices – especially for oil- seed rape – have leant an air of opti- mism to harvest. Mr Smooker said, “In this area it is probably the best oilseed
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AUGUST 2021 • MIDLAND FARMER 7
rape crop we have seen for a few years and will go some way to boosting con- fi dence in the crop.”
Rape crops looked well podded ahead of harvest after an extended fl owering period where many grow- ers protected the potential with two Sclerotinia sprays during some wet conditions. Mr Keane said: ”The plans are there to drill oilseed rape, but growers will only do so if there is moisture in the soil; whether that is in August or Sep- tember, it doesn’t matter, you have to hang on for the moisture.”
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