With the T3 fungicide timing approaching, thoughts are turning to which products to include.

And with the continued disease pressure, this spray is as much about topping up septoria and rust protection as managing the fusarium threat to emerging heads in the absence of a settled, dry spell of weather.

See also: How healthy soils and glyphosate use can work together

West

Neil Potts – Matford Arable (Devon)

This year is going to go down as the season that just does not want to play ball.

We could have done with a dry spell to help get on top of the extreme septoria pressure, but this has not happened and we have continued to have plenty of septoria events.

It is becoming very evident that a T0 has been extremely important this year in giving us a chance at keeping on top of this damaging disease.

Crops where inputs have been well timed, whether it be nitrogen applications or fungicides and plant growth regulators, are now looking respectable, but where applications have been missed or delayed the story is very different.

We are not suffering the rust epidemic that is affecting much of the rest of the country, but we have certainly got pockets where both brown and yellow rust are having their say, as well as the septoria.

This year may see the demise of Skyfall as a variety on the grounds of increasing susceptibility to yellow rust.

It is certainly going to be an interesting harvest. Thankfully, the price of wheat has started to edge upwards, which will in some part make up for what are likely to be disappointing yields.

It is a little early to judge which fungicides have performed well this year, but the new offering from Syngenta is looking promising.

Nearly all crops will get a T3 this year, as much as a septoria control top up as to control fusarium

Winter barley

Winter barley crops are, like the wheats, variable but it looks like there will be some goodish crops.

Fungicide programmes have, on the whole, done a good job and crops are looking pretty disease-free as I write.

Spring barley crops are all going to be late, having all been planted in May but they have not suffered from dry conditions, as in 2023.

The crops are looking well and if they were like this in late March or early April, we would be delighted.

In the past I have had some very presentable crops from May plantings, but it is very dependent on the weather being onside all the way through the life of the crop

Maize plantings are drawing to a close at the time of writing, and despite some tricky seed-beds, crops have established pretty well with little or no capping, as was experienced by many in 2023.

It just remains now for the season to chuck enough heat at us to get this crop ready for harvest at a sensible time in the autumn.

It is my feeling that there has been quite an increase in the maize acreage down here this season so we will need some favourable conditions in September and October.

South

Iain Richards – Agrii (Oxfordshire)

The regular rainfall this spring has been positive and negative for crops in the area.

It has been a godsend for backward winter and spring crops, but with the wet weather has come the pressing challenge of disease control and timely spray applications.

Wheat crops look good, but we are becoming increasingly concerned about disease levels.

Regular rainfall and warmer temperatures have encouraged septoria to rear its head, particularly on the earlier drilled crops.

We also can’t forget about yellow rust, which continues to be a threat, and there is a lot of brown rust in Crusoe.

The weather has also limited the available spray days.

Even the most efficient sprayer operations have had gaps between the T1 and T2 fungicide of up to 28 days, which has led to some levels of latent septoria for fungicides to contend with.

It all adds up to make T3 quite complicated. In most situations, we will be looking for a septoria and rust top-up, and with milling premiums where they are, we can’t forget about fusarium.

Fortunately, the outlook for achieving protein specification on our milling wheat is positive.

An inch of rainfall shortly after the final nitrogen application means the crop will have quickly taken it up.

Backward crops

This spring has suited our backward winter wheat crops. They came into it with very shallow roots, and we worried about how they would fare if conditions turned dry.

They haven’t struggled for water, which has also helped with nitrogen uptake.

The crops have held onto tillers and look much better than we had expected.

Despite the improved outlook for these backward crops, it has made us realise how important crop competition is for grassweed control.

It is a similar story for some earlier drilled crops that had their autumn pre- and peri-emergence herbicides disrupted and spring contact herbicides applied much later than was ideal.

Effective grassweed control requires all of the pieces of the jigsaw, which hasn’t always been possible this season.

Oilseed rape continues to be full of promise. Crops have podded well, which seem to be filling nicely.

The next time we go into oilseed rape will be for desiccation in July, when we expect to be anticipating good returns.

Spring barley crops look fantastic. We have established 350 plants/sq m, and they will all have a main stem and at least two tillers, giving us well over 1,000 shoots/sq m. Even our later drillings have tillered better than we had ever imagined.

The challenge is to keep them standing and avoiding brackling closer to harvest.

We have a big push on late plant growth regulators (PGRs) at a T1.5 timing, where we also plan to include folpet for ramularia.

T1 fungicides have been applied to all our barley crops, and T2s have begun in our earlier drillings.

So far, programmes have kept rhynchosporium and net blotch in check, leaving us hopeful for harvest.

North

David Martindale – Arable Alliance (Yorkshire)

Frequent spells of rain during May have allowed good growth of spring-sown crops.

The moisture and above average temperatures have allowed for good tiller development in spring cereals, so for a given seed rate there are many more shoots/sq m than envisaged.

Some earlier sown spring barley and oat crops in particular look tall and frothy, already putting the frighteners on growers and agronomists alike over whether they will still be standing come harvest.

In contrast, spring-sown cereals on some heavier land that had been waterlogged for many months over winter have struggled to get going, appearing thinner and shorter compared with better drained areas.

In winter wheat crops T3 fungicides will soon be ready to be applied.

There are more issues to consider with this timing than usual as both Septoria tritici and rust pressures are higher this year.

Orange wheat blossom midge risk could well be higher due to recent rains providing ideal conditions for their emergence from the soil. Thankfully, many resistant varieties are grown.

However, for susceptible varieties the thresholds are one midge per three ears in feed wheat and one midge per six ears in milling crops.

At these thresholds there will be many midges present before an insecticide is required.

Spring barley crops have flag leaves or awns beginning to appear.

Crop growth in some of these fields has been phenomenal, so robust rates of PGR have been applied.

Whilst canopies in these spring barley crops look relatively clean at present some leaves will have become infected with diseases such as rhynchosporium due to the wet conditions so a T2 fungicide will be applied.

Spring oats

Spring oats are the recovery crop, seemingly able to come from nowhere no matter how late or what the conditions.

Even late April sown crops now look to have reasonable yield potential.

The earlier sown oat crops look exceptionally well and have received a strong PGR programme.

By comparison spring wheat is proving more of a slow burner with much steadier growth as they go through the stem extension phases.

Yellow rust has been bubbling away in susceptible varieties with more Septoria tritici present on the older leaves as the T1 fungicides were being applied.

Gout fly egg laying has been prevalent in some fields of spring wheat so far, with time still available for this pest to cause problems.

Whilst spring beans were exceptionally slow to establish they have finally picked up with the earliest crops now beginning to flower.

Disease control options are now being considered as the T1 fungicide approaches.

East

Ben Pledger – Farmacy (Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire)

As predicted in the winter, some cereals drilled in the later part of the autumn on heavier land which have sat in wet soil for months are now starting to show signs of stress.

Shallower and smaller than usual root systems are beginning to struggle to get the nutrition the plants require for the period of rapid biomass production they are currently in.

As well as letting in both brown and yellow rust, even on varieties which gave good scores for the diseases we are now seeing other indicators of stress such as ascochyta and chlorotic spotting, the latter also developing from lower light levels in the crop.

Different varieties are coping better than others, but Champion stands out to me as being particularly susceptible.

Fingers crossed for a change in the weather going forward with a period of sunshine on the wish list.

Spring barley

Spring crops are now moving quickly through growth stages with awns out on spring barleys and ears emerging on early drilled spring oats.

Growers have elected to pull back on total nitrogen applications to spring barley in an effort to keep grain nitrogen down to attract a malting premium.

Some crops, which are now bigger than expected at drilling, are starting to show a lack of nitrogen in tissue tests.

If we weren’t targeting low nitrogen in the grain I’d be applying foliar nitrogen in the form of methylated-urea.

However, in this situation pyraclostrobin will be applied along with a fluxapyroxad-based fungicide to the ear.

The pyraclostrobin will give the greening effect to the crop to allow for as much photosynthesis as possible as well as protecting against rust.

As well as disease control, fluxapyroxad will reduce brackling, hopefully, setting the crop up for an easy harvest.

Spring oats will also get an ear-wash based on tebuconazole and pyraclostrobin.

The aim here is protection against crown rust, as well as utilising the greening effect of the pyraclostrobin to push bushel weights as far as they will go.