While no year is perfect, most tillage farmers would readily select the autumn of 2018 plus the year-to-date of 2019, as an easy working season. And so far it seems like a year that would be worth repeating.

One of the main peculiarities of this year, so far, has been the predominance of mildew and rust diseases in many parts of the country and especially in the south, where these diseases tend to occur less frequently than further north and east.

It seems inevitable that the prolonged period of easterly wind, followed by northerly winds, had a significant part to play in that. But every year is different and no one knows how this one will finish weather-wise.

What we can say with certainty is that it is better to be facing into the second half of the year with crops that are mainly clean, than ones that carry high disease-infection levels.

At this point, most of the plant protection spend is done in most crops, through a combination of herbicide, growth regulation and early fungicide.

Most crops now await their earing -out fungicides and that will happen quite quickly, especially with barley, despite the fact that many crops are only going into stem extension now.

The experiences of last year and the cleanliness of most crops this year may make skipping a fungicide appear attractive.

However, this last bit of insurance could be your most valuable, as there is no recovery from failure at the end of the season and simple, basic precaution is the order of the day, as indicated by Tom McCabe and Steven Kildea in this week's Focus section.

It remains difficult to know what will happen to prices, so your best risk management strategy is to ensure to optimise your yield levels in what appears to be a promising year to date.