Last week saw the nation’s roads busy with agricultural vehicles and our fields even busier. If we get a few more days without significant rain this will be a “naught to 60 in less than six seconds” spring.

There is a huge amount of planting going on. As I travel the country I see sprayers, ploughs, cultivators, drills and now rollers out on land to give sown fields their final touch-up. It was obvious that ground had dried out a lot on top, but not necessarily underneath.

Rollers were needed because land would not break down easily due to the slumping caused by the winter wet. So the roller is an important tool to help prevent seedbeds getting too dry and causing uneven germination.

In the winter crop fields, there was cause for concern throughout the winter given the amount of late-planted winter crops. But they have come through well and the vast majority look to be in very good condition.

While early sown crops had pushed towards stem extension well over a month ago, later-sown ones were barely tillering. Now some early crops are pushing towards second node while later sown wheats are moving towards stem extension.

I was in a number of winter crops in recent days and, in the main, they looked well.

Winter barley

The crops I walked into around north Leinster were later sown but not very late. The winter barley crops looked very well and the more advanced stems had a second node present. It struck me that they felt a bit soft and would give cause for concern if we got very rapid growth again after this cold spell.

There was absolutely no disease in the crops but there were loads of weeds. These fields had obviously not been sprayed for weeds in the autumn and there were a lot of weeds present, especially in patches. They had been sprayed in the recent past, however, and the weeds present looked to be dying.

There was a bit of white/purple blotching on the barley leaves, which could be a consequence of DFF use.

There was a lot of annual meadowgrass (AMG) in patches and this did not look affected in any way but then there are really no options for AMG control in winter barley in springtime since IPU went. The only consolation is that the crop itself is good and thick which should help to smother the grass.

The major weeds were chickweed and speedwell, including some ivy-leaved speedwell which is becoming an increasing problem. There was also a low level of cleavers, some volunteer rape and a little bit of fumitory.

While the weeds were definitely affected by the herbicide, they should be checked again in a few weeks because it is at least possible that some or many may recover.

Winter wheat

The winter wheat crops I visited were only coming into stem extension and were not yet at GS30. All crops were very clean and healthy but one crop had an amount of regular patches of low plant population, which looked to be associated with the regularity of combine thrash. If this is the case then the low population areas could be related to toxicity from the decaying thrash or slug damage or some combination of both. Another field of wheat showed no signs of slug damage or plant population issues.

Again, these wheat crops had not been sprayed in the autumn and there were no signs that they had been sprayed recently as there were no signs of damage to the weeds. There were a lot of weeds present and the AMG was at strong tillering stage. There were also some areas where clumps of AMG had survived ploughing and these are now very strong.

Weed populations were very variable in the crops. There were more cleavers in these crops along with speedwell, chickweed, some fumitory, a few rape volunteers and a lot of poppy. In a few areas the weed population was serious and needs to be hit urgently.