Harvest continues: The forecast seemed good but the weather was only so so in many parts of the country. Still there was an amount of cutting done with combines now getting into spring barley and winter wheat as well as continuing in winter rape and oats. Physical grain quality is generally good to exceptionally good in all crop types.

A quick summary states that winter barley was very variable; winter oats was generally good with a few disappointments; and winter rape was quite good with many crops in the 2t+ bracket but some were down to 1.6t/ac.

Harvesting of spring barley has been underway since last week and the story is mixed. Early yield reports vary from 2 to 4t/ac, with some regions getting high acceptance for malting and others getting almost total rejection, generally because of high protein.

Down south there are reports of grain skinning being an issue once again, possibly related to the difficult and variable growth conditions during grain fill. Combine settings have a part to play in reducing damage when the risk is higher. Perhaps the problem will ease as the harvest progresses.

Winter wheat harvesting has begun also, with some early crops and early varieties already gone under the knife. Early reports range from 3.8 to nearly 5t/ac.

Back to planting: As most growers get into the thick of harvest mid-August means it is time for winter oilseed rape planting again. This is the most satisfactory and safe crop option to get a portion of your area planted without risk of BYDV or significant grass weeds. Grass weeds will still occur but, hopefully, these can still be killed with graminicides.

While not spoken about much in the past, this crop also gets aphid transmitted virus diseases, specifically Turnip Yellows Virus (TuYV). There was no prescribed control in the past, but rotation density appeared to be a factor. Now we have a number of varieties that offer resistance.

This resistance has to be particularly valuable with early planting. While these varieties are not yet recommended, but they have performed very well in Irish trials last year. The varieties in question are Ambassador, Artemis and Aurelia. All three yielded between 112 and 114 last year.

Straw and stubbles: Straw is visibly slow to leave fields across much of the country and it has been difficult to get it baled up in places. But as stubbles get cleared it should be a priority to get some shallow cultivation done, especially on land where grassweeds are a problem.

Getting seeds to grow and reducing the seed bank is the only way one can ever win that battle. Every year we hear of more resistance problems and with fewer and fewer new actives coming to market, we will not win this battle with chemicals alone.

Shallow cultivation, 5-7.5cm, will help to germinate many of the seeds that were shed this year, plus others already in the ground. Once you get them to strike, cultivate the field again to kill them and to encourage another flush of germination.