Crops and mildew have prospered in mild, wet winter
Crops and mildew have prospered in mild, wet winter
By John Allan
HEAVY rains around New Year produced limited flooding on the host farm for Cereals 98. But hand-dug trenches and using a 1950 Rushton and Hornsby diesel to pump the water into the river alleviated the problem at Haverholme Farm Partner-ship near Sleaford in Lincoln-shire.
"Overall the crops have come through the winter well, but I would like to see a bit more cold weather to harden them off," comments Velcourt manager, Chris Redfearn.
Virtually all the 411ha (1016 acres) of winter wheat was sprayed with isoproturon and diflufenican last autumn.
HEAVY rains around New Year produced limited flooding on the host farm for Cereals 98. But hand-dug trenches and using a 1950 Rushton and Hornsby diesel to pump the water into the river alleviated the problem at Haverholme Farm Partner-ship near Sleaford in Lincoln-shire.
"Overall the crops have come through the winter well, but I would like to see a bit more cold weather to harden them off," comments Velcourt manager, Chris Redfearn.
Virtually all the 411ha (1016 acres) of winter wheat was sprayed with isoproturon and diflufenican last autumn.
"This has done a good job, although some fields will need patch treatments of Starane when the weather warms up. This will take out cleavers that the diflufenican did not get hold of," says Mr Redfearn.
One field was not treated in the autumn as conditions were unfavourable. "The field carries a risk of spring wild oats and spraying will be delayed so that we can take them out with a contact spray, together with the blackgrass and wild oats that are already there – probably using Cheetah or Topic."
Mildew and septoria
All the winter wheat varieties are affected by mildew and Septoria tritici to some extent. Early drilled Consort shows most disease, while Beaufort and Drake have septoria but little mildew, The second wheat crop of Reaper is low on both diseases.
Mildew is also to be found on all crops of winter barley, especially Gaelic, which will be treated with an appropriate mildewicide as soon as possible. "The Intro and Regina have lower levels of mildew, but Intro is showing some net blotch as well," adds Mr Redfearn.
For the first time, 20% of the winter oilseed rape was direct drilled using the farms Caterpillar 75C and 8m (26ft) Simba Freeflow drill. Although the crop emergence is rather patchy in places, Mr Redfearn is looking forward to comparing the gross margin with half a field that was disced and pressed before drilling.
"The direct drilled crop will also need graminicide, together with some other fields of rape, especially those follo-wing six-row barley," he says.
In common with all crops at this time of year, the oilseed rape is walked once a week and varying levels of phoma have been found – Apex being the worst affected. One field was given a follow-up to the autumn spray on Feb 5.
In contrast to some parts of the country, there has been little trouble with slugs. With only 25% of the winter wheat ground ploughed, Mr Redfearn finds slugs are discouraged by the fine rolled seed-bed left after minimum cultivation.
Residual nitrogen
Overall the residual N is expected to be high after the mild winter. Readings will be taken in mid-February and fed into a prediction system to give a guide to the top-dressing rates.
"Nitrogen has already been applied to some pigeon grazed and direct drilled rape that needed a kick, using 30 kg/ha of liquid N37 – a urea/ammonium nitrate mix," says Mr Redfearn.
However, with the sulphur maps showing Sleaford in a low deposition area, the first routine top-dressings of liquid N35S to rape are expected to start around Feb 13.
CEREALS 98 – HOST FARM
• Limited flooding.
• Crops have come through winter well.
• Phoma in OSR – especially Apex.
• Mildew and septoria in wheat – especially early Consort.
• Mildew in barley with net blotch in Intro.
• Very few slug problems.
Smiling on, despite the challenges of a wet mid-winter and advanced crop growth are Velcourt manager Chris Redfearn (left) and sprayer operator Peter Leveridge. Anti-phoma sprays for rape are the main priority.