Green and weedy winter wheat crops could be sprayed off with glyphosate herbicide to bring forward harvest and also speed up combining.

Recent rain has lead to a flush of weeds in patchy crops and secondary tillering in wheat which could delay harvest and push up grain moisture levels.

Manda Sansom, technical development manager at Monsanto UK and Ireland, says a pre-harvest spray could be a real boost for growers looking to even-up crops before harvest.

She points out that spraying with the group’s glyphosate product, Roundup, could boost combine output by more than 30% to save time at harvest.

“We would urge growers to assess crops and if there are weeds and green stems and leaves then we would encourage them to look at evening-up the crop,” Mrs Sansom says.

She says the treatment needs to be made seven days before harvest and when the grain is at a 30% moisture level or less, or when growers can press a thumbnail into the grain and an indentation retains an impression.

This glyphosate treatment can be used on milling and feed wheats or malting and feed barleys as long as harvest is at least seven days after spraying.

Rates of Roundup can vary between 360g/ha for light annual grassweeds and second tillering up to 1,440g/ha for heavy perennial broadleaved weed and couch grass infestatons.

She adds removing green stems and leaves in cereal crops can help reduce the grain moisture at combining.

“We have seen grain going into the combine at 16% moisture and then picking up moisture from green leaves and stems leading to rewetting and pushing the grain up to 20% moisture content,” she says.

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