Over the past few weeks, I have attended crop trials around the country looking at various herbicide and fungicide programmes, as well as cultural control methods.

I use this time of year to evaluate fungicide programmes and their efficiency.

The levels of brown rust have been exceptional this year, but we have managed to keep it out of crops.

See also: Agchem twin packs: Unwanted complication or cost saving opportunity?

About the author

Robin Aird

Arable Farmer Focus writer Robin Aird manages 1500ha on the north Wiltshire and Gloucestershire border, with a further 160ha on a contract farming agreement. Soils vary from gravel to clay with the majority silty clay loams. The diverse estate has Residential, commercial and events enterprises. He is Basis qualified and advises on other farming businesses.

Read more articles by Robin Aird

The winter wheats are looking better, which is why I decided to take the plunge and put a foliar urea on the milling wheats. With the current premiums, I hope the gamble pays off.

I have not used a fertiliser top up for 20 years.

Our wholecrop rye harvest surprised me by yielding above budget. It was smoothly forage harvested over five days by Hannah Bell and her team.

We tried planting one of our Sustainable Farming Incentive options behind it, but the ground was too hard, so we gave up after 40ha.

After 50mm of rain softened the ground, we managed to get the last 200ha planted in 24 hours before another 20mm of rain.

Crops were starting to struggle in the last few weeks of slightly drier weather. It’s obvious crops have not put down any roots this season. This current spell of weather will help with grain fill in both the spring and winter wheat crops.

The maize has also not enjoyed the season. On 4 July, we had knee-high and waist-high crops, but there were some areas that were half way up the calf. Hopefully, we will have a spell of heat soon to boost growth.

We had two fields of spring wheat that had a flush of blackgrass just as we drilled them.

Our neighbour kindly came over with his weedsurfer and I was extremely impressed with the job.

Any viable seed will, hopefully, chit after this rain and we can spray the stubbles off after harvest.

We have secured our hybrid rye seed for the coming growing season and are planning on home-saving Palladium and Extase winter wheat again.

We are still three weeks away from harvest, so fingers crossed we have a nice easy one and the weather behaves itself.