Fieldwork: there’s plenty of showery weather at the minute, but still weather to get maize, potatoes and beet out of the ground in places.

A lot of the maize across the country is harvested and some of it is harvested quite a while. If your maize crops were not ready to harvest before the heavy rain then examine what variety you are growing and the time of sowing, could it have been planted earlier or could you have planted an earlier maturing variety or could you have done both?

As land gets wetter and heavy machinery comes in to harvest soil is being damaged so, in general an earlier maturing variety is better on the soil, the contractor and the crop quality in bad weather.

Three-crop rule: the three-crop rule remains in place so make sure you have a plan in place to meet requirements. You may need another winter crop or to make plans for spring cropping. If you have 10-30ha you need at least two tillage crops and one crop cannot take up more than 75% of the tillage area.

If you have over 30ha you need three tillage crops. The main crop cannot be more than 75%, the two main crops cannot take up more than 95% of the cropping area and the smallest crop cannot be less than 5%.

Oilseed rape: keep an eye on oilseed rape crops. Check for light leaf spot by taking some leaves and placing them in the fridge to see if lesions form. Many crops are very forward and might need a plant growth regulator or a fungicide with some plant growth regulator properties to keep it back a little bit.

If your crop is thin then Proline will most likely be okay for disease control, while thick crops will get some growth regulation from something like Prosaro. Consult with your agronomist on your best option.

Slugs: slug numbers don’t appear to be too bad, hopefully crops will get away from them, but keep an eye out and keep traps out. Slugs will persist with rye throughout the winter, even as it grows bigger. With current wet weather newly-sown winter cereals will need to be watched for slugs.

Cover crops: if you have cover crops on your farm take a walk out into them on some of the wet days and see what they are doing for your soil.

Is it covering the ground and protecting the soil from the weather? Bring a spade and dig down to see what roots are doing what, are the bigger roots getting down into the soil, are the turnips growing all the way down? Is compaction stopping some plants and are plants breaking some compaction?

This year cover crops are growing really well due to early sowing so its an ideal opportunity to see what they are bringing to the soil. It is also important to look out for weeds. Are there plants in the mix that should not be there? How will you control them in the coming months.

Cover crops grown under a scheme need to be in place until 1 January.