It’s as if someone upstairs was listening or my rain dances worked, the rain eventually arrived here in North Yorkshire 2 weeks ago and was the much-needed booster shot some of these oilseed rape crops needed. Apart from the odd monsoon the rain arrived in dribs and drabs with just over 50mm being accumulated so far. As well as giving crops a new lease of life soil conditions have eased up allowing the army of cultivators and drills to race to fields and start their autumn campaign! Softer conditions underfoot are also a welcomed relief to our soil sampling outfit, concrete fields were taking their toll and I’m pretty sure if you melted down all the bent probes from this season you could rebuild the Titanic!
Early sown oilseed rape crops are finally up and away from flea beetle threats with the most advanced crops now reaching 6 leaves. I’m sure however these critters aren’t going to starve as they seem to be filling their bellies on the late August sown crops in which these are struggling to shake them off! I applied very few pre-emergence herbicides to OSR crops this year due to dry conditions and the threat of not having a crop to protect from weed invasions! Costs were kept to a minimum with just a low rate graminicide applied so far to stop volunteer cereals pilfering any early traces of moisture. Weed flushes have begun following the rain therefore a single application of halauxifen-methyl + picloram partnered with another graminicide (of different active to the first application) to tackle the secondary flush of volunteers will be going on in the next 10 days.
Winter linseeds have gone into near perfect conditions and with rain straight after drilling emergence jumped out the ground within 6 days. First true leaves are now unfolding therefore graminicide sheets are now being left to tackle early cereal volunteer flushes. Pre-emergence sprays seem to be holding up to expectations on light land up to press.
A large amount of my first winter wheat acreage is already now in the ground with the exception for any bad blackgrass situations or lack of seed on farm! Soil conditions are near perfect with some very good seed beds being produced. Earliest sown wheats have all now emerged and won’t be long before a green tinge can be seen across fields. Slug activity has at present been low but as soon as they realise an abundance of fresh food is available adlib, I’m sure their presence will soon be there to see. Where grassweeds are not the main target an ever reliable mix of pendimethalin and diflufenican will be my go to choice pre-emergence. As grassweeds start to trouble fields programmes will be based around flufenacet and in some cases I will be dipping my toes into newer chemistry and having a go with the newly approved cinmethylin and see what this combined with other actives brings to the never ending war against blackgrass.
Winter barleys have followed in wheats footsteps and now all safely in the ground and in most cases pre-emergence herbicides have been applied. I favour pre-emergence plans with barley to get on top of any grassweed problems early as post-emergence options activity starts to decline the longer you leave it.
