A few weeks ago it looked like we could be set for an early harvest. While there may be a few combines moving from this weekend, most growers will look towards next week and the week after. Maturity is variable within regions and there is quite a lot of green straw and some green heads in crops where grains look ripe and were around 22% moisture early this week.

It is bit worrying to see a small number of poorly filled heads in some winter barley crops and even the big heads look like they could be better filled. But crops are dense with big ear sizes so perhaps they cannot fill to the max.

Bits of ear blight have become increasingly evident in winter wheat crops but most are still not bad. I see a fair bit of mildew in some spring barley crops along with some net blotch and a lot of rhyncho in a few crops. What would seem to be ramularia is also evident. There are also single yellow leaves evident in all crops.

A few weeks ago I came across crops of winter sown spring oats that had been hammered by a combination of growth regulator and frost. I came across something similar this week where there was a lack of height uniformity in the crop with evidence of main stems having been killed some time ago and new tillers still coming on affected plants after the dominance of the main seem was removed.

There is also a strong turn on many winter oat crops as the leaves begin to senesce and the grains begin to turn. Grain fill seems good on totally healthy plants but later tillers seem unlikely to be able to fully compensate for main stem death at this point.

Lodging and crows

Recent rain and showers have caused an amount of patchy lodging and significant tossing in barley and oats. This is most obvious in seed and nitrogen overlaps and under trees. Lodged spots provide another access point for crows and pigeons. If you only have a few patches lodged consider erecting kites in some of them for protection.

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Tillage management: desiccation of oilseed rape