A disagreeable time

Perhaps the only good thing we can say about the recent very broken weather for cereals is that the work is already done. Potato growers are being hit extra hard, with wet tramlines and blighty weather, while the combination of wind and rain has made oilseed rape desiccation difficult to impossible.

The broken weather has certainly slowed ripening in the majority of crops. Many winter barley crops may still not be ripe next week, or even later, but there may be a few early crops cut either side of this weekend if weather is favourable. But the forecast is currently not great for the early part of next week.

Crop progress

Opinions on crop progress are very divergent. Some report a tangible improvement since the rain, especially in spring crops, while others believe their spring crops have thinned out since the growth came back into them and they got taller.

Diseases have been driven-on by the recent wet but, in general, good disease control programmes have worked very well. Good weather at the time of spraying helped timing and it also helped keep down disease levels. Unsprayed plots now show significant levels of rust infection (brown as well as yellow) on susceptible varieties, septoria on the flag leaves of some winter wheats, a little ear blight and some fresh rhyncho.

Weeds

While crops looked clean all year, this situation has now changed in many fields. Wild oats, poppy and other grass weeds are now quite prominent. Thinner than normal crops favoured the weeds which might otherwise be smothered by the crop canopy. There is little that can be done about any of these at this point (except rogueing) but glyphosate might be considered if there is still life in the weeds before harvest.

Blackgrass

Reports of blackgrass seem increasingly common and this weed is fast becoming a mainstream problem. This aggressive yield robbing grassweed will take over fields and farms if it is allowed in. It has developed resistance to most families of herbicide and now there are even reported issues with glyphosate. Keep it out at all costs.

This means a rethink on machines coming and going, especially combines and balers. Compost is a concern too, depending on its origin. But soil from a contaminated field can also bring weed seeds into another field.

The major thing is to be vigilant with crop inspection and carefully rogue the very first plants to appear in your fields, whatever the source. Its main period for germination is autumn, so early stubble cultivation is key to reducing seed numbers and spring crops are generally not infested.

Heads of the grass are now visible where the weed exists. It is a long narrow tight head – if you see something like this get it checked out but make sure to pull it all first. Check the area again a week later. Blackgrass is largely out-crossing, which means that it is breeding ‘new varieties’ in every generation – hence its ability to evolve and generate resistance.