Weather: Many tillage areas received a good dousing over last weekend which will certainly relieve any drought stress in the few crops like beet, beans, potatoes and maize that should still have a lot of growing to do. Previous showers had already relieved this problem in most other areas.

All of this heavy rain has further added to lodging pressure. This can be seen in fields of spring barley, winter wheat and spring oats. At this point there is serious lodging in some crops that will most likely lead to yield and quality loss.

It would seem that the weather is likely to be more variable and broken over the coming week. This now brings an additional concern in crops that have basked in sunshine for many weeks. In general, crops that get frequent rain during grain fill and early ripening tend to have higher natural resistance to sprouting but the converse is also true.

In a broken harvest following a dry hot grain fill, the risk of sprouting is higher so this may not be a harvest for hanging around. Once crops are ripe and ready, take them out.

Harvest: There was a bit more harvesting done in the past week with more combines in winter wheat and so far crops are good. Yields are well into the four-tonne bracket with quality to match. Much of the winter rape harvest is now finished also but yields were not good in general. Questions are being asked as to the significance of light leaf spot infection on final yield.

Straw: Many winter barely fields have already been cleared of straw. Some have since been cultivated but many have not. Cultivation is the only tool you have to help grow out specific problems like sterile brome in continuous barley ground.

There is still a lot of uncertainty in the straw market with some farmers prepared to virtually give it away. A small amount of chopping, specifically on the headlands of all fields, will help focus attention on getting straw. If it’s not wanted, and you don’t have storage, chop it in advance.

There is also a lot of evidence of poor performing headlands this year, emphasising the need to begin to fix them.

Gathering straw has been difficult over the past week. With broken weather still forecast, avoid turning straw unless you are sure you can get it baled.

Wider headers increase the challenge of baling these big rows once they get wet. Last year I posed a question about coping with this and one man told me about a combine that had an old straw spreader fitted but the flaps were cut back to give a modest spread of the row of straw.

Stubble cultivation: This is one of the few options that winter barley producers have to help tackle sterile brome. This must be tackled now, regardless of the following crop.

Ploughing should help control brome providing it is good quality. However, shallow cultivation pre-ploughing will help to germinate some of the seeds close to the surface and help to achieve better skimming and burial of all seeds on the surface. This will be much more successful than skimming at burying all surface thrash to depth.