Harvest pushed back: Prospects of a very early harvest last spring have been pushed well back to average at best and many may even hope for a late start to harvest to get more nice slow growth to complete winter barley grain fill. While winter wheat and spring barley may glory in the high temperatures forecast for the end of this week, winter barley with work still to do would generally prefer a more even pace of growth. But perhaps this will matter less for those at the very end of grain fill.

This June is a stark contrast to last season but some crops, spring crops in particular, did suffer to some degree from the lack early summer rainfall to drive vegetative growth. This may be yet another year when the ability to combine drill fertiliser could pay decent dividends.

Yellow leaves: Yellow leaves are a very common feature of spring crops and especially barley. As was the case in other years, this seems to be a variable symptom with only some leaves yellow on a stem and those leaves being almost totally yellow, which is not the normal leaf symptom of BYDV. We must hope this yellowing of the upper leaves will have minimal consequence for yield but it poses a very real worry for the level of virus about and the pressure this may impose on winter crops, both early and late sown this autumn.

This disease needs some serious new research and assessment and there is a lot of such work already under way at Teagasc. It would seem from the location of the symptoms that much of this infection occurred late in the season and it exhibits no signs of dwarfing. We now need to know if this is all BYDV or a possible interaction between virus infection and seasonal plant stress or if we are dealing with a different form of the virus.

Many people were aware of the presence of aphids on crops late in the season but we might not expect that they would be carrying virus on to crops at that point. We also need an assessment of the associated yield loss because it may not be possible or economical to try to reduce this infection. We know from past experience that it is virtually impossible to prevent it completely in such a season.

Winter barley: Crows continue to be a problem but this may be eased by the recent rain and the fact that crops are gone to doughy-ripe stage. Do what you can to keep crows away from high-risk areas such as lodged patches, crop edges, along by wire fences etc. Prevention is more successful and more economical than cure.

Final sprays: Final fungicides need to be applied on the last of the spring barley and to spring wheat and oat crops. Barley sprays must include chlorothalonil for ramularia control plus cover against rust and rhyncho in particular.

Spring wheat should be finished off at early flowering with the triazoles targeting ear blight. A contact fungicide might also be considered on wheat as it seems to control a number of troublesome diseases which can be problematic should the weather remain wet.