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Another production season winds towards an end and let’s hope it will be as successful as it promises.
Successful in terms of good disease control with good responses to inputs; successful in terms of high yield and quality; and successful in terms of not generating widespread resistance.
The dry spring meant that our more common wet season diseases have been less of a problem so far, while less common diseases such as mildew and rusts were very problematic in places.
We will always have to fight plant disease in our climate and Steven Kildea’s comments regarding the finding of resistance in our main barley diseases add to this concern.
The battle against nature is never-ending. The appearance of new modes of action in our pesticides arsenal (fungicides, herbicides or insecticides) only provides an additional window for us to combat these maladies. These solutions are not permanent and we need to use all possible tools in a way that recognises this.
Integrated pest management isn’t just a legal issue – it is obligatory for farmers to have a future. Genetic resistance and new biotechnology tools help in this regard.
Our evaluation process provides growers with a useful indication of the susceptibility, or otherwise, of our varieties to a range of diseases via the recommended lists. However, recent research has shown that variety resistance is not the same thing as lower fungicide requirement but perhaps this can be finetuned in time.
New biotech tools could help in plant breeding, if they are allowed. Such tools could also help by providing indicators of disease development in a crop or by confirming the presence of virus in aphids. If aphids do not carry virus during early crop growth, they are much less of a threat to our crops. It would be very useful to have field-based technology that would tell us this.
Crops and sprays: the challenges and lessons from 2017
Tillage TAMS – potentially useful investment opportunities
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