Never until this year have I had a call during the harvest telling me that my winter barley failed to make the grade. We had treated it much the same as other years except with one important difference.

Since the banning two years ago of the seed dressing Redigo Dieter, we have been struggling with the potential damage that could be caused by barley yellow dwarf virus.

Both the French and British governments invoked emergency powers to permit the compound to be used to control the very similar virus yellows in sugar beet. There has been no such derogation here.

But to get back to the harvest. As I listened to the voice on the other end of the phone tell me that the screenings and small grains were too high, as was the protein, and the bushel weight was too low at below the 62 specified, I tried to identify the causes.

Likely causes

The first suspect was barley yellow dwarf virus which was clearly present in the crop and was spreading in the months coming up to harvest. How much did it contribute to giving a yield of barely 3t/ac?

To be honest I don’t know, but our local input supplier came out and examined a selection of the roots and said, in his view, Take-all was a contributing factor. That made absolute sense.

The crop had been sown after a crop of feed wheat which had followed oats after oilseed rape, in other words, a second cereal after a break crop following oilseed rape.

I remember experimenting with a second wheat after oilseed rape some years ago and the crop was very poor because of Take-all so the diagnosis seems spot on.

It was backed up by a small field we had which had barley last year and so, the theoretical risk of severe Take-all was reduced and so it turned out.

Also the small, isolated field had less barley yellow dwarf virus. The end result was a bushel weight comfortably in the mid 60s, lower protein and screenings and meeting all specifications.

I haven’t received the final yield yet but I reckon around 3.75t/ac for the small field. A few lessons to be absorbed.

Meanwhile on the cattle side, I have been taken aback at the drop in quotes for finished beef, but there is no point in holding on to fit cattle, so a small load went off this week.

They have already been replaced with a full load of early 2021 bullocks we bought in last week, but given the speed of price drops, we will hold off for purchasing any more until we see how the early back end trade develops.