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Planting and harvesting collide
Many growers have held off planting until this week in an effort to minimise the additional costs associated with early drilling but ground conditions played a part also.
The harvest situation in the northwest is now even worse than last year
Others are trying to get harvesting wrapped up as there are still lumps of grain, mainly spring barley, oats and beans, to be cut.
The harvest situation in the northwest is now even worse than last year.
For some growers, the priority is to get crops harvested; for others, it is to get straw baled and cleared.
Straw lost
Some straw is not salvageable at this point and headlands and some fields are already being chopped to clear the land.
Other fields have stubble vegetation growing up through the straw rows and they may be very difficult to save unless we get a spell of really good drying weather.
Chop and incorperate
If you need to get land planted and have poor straw in your way you may need to chop and incorporate.
The necessity to chop must be balanced by the urgency to plant.
Winter rape
There has been some serious slug activity in recent weeks, so make sure your crop is not hosting a feast.
Treatment with slug pellets, using products like Axcela, Destroyer, Lima Gold, Metarex Inov and Traxx, might be needed. Application rates vary for the different products.
Keep an eye out for flea beetle damage but it seems that this pest has not been a big problem this autumn.
If you have visible damage in your crop, it is essential to identify and treat the correct cause.
Slugs eat everything but normally feed from the edge in. The flea beetle just puts little puncture holes on the leaf surface and damage is only significant when numbers are high at the cotyledon stage.
Rabbits can also graze rape and they just take away all the foliage in a given area.
Volunteer cereals are very visible in some established crops and these must be controlled. Other grass weeds like brome or canary grass or wild oats may also need to be controlled in specific fields.
Apply a graminicide such as Claw 100, Falcon, Fusilade Max or Stratos Ultra, once grass weeds are visible. Low rates can work on very young seedlings but higher rates will be needed for surviving clumps.
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