Undesirable tail to harvest

Most of the harvest was saved in really good weather conditions but there has been a significant tail on what is left to do. A week ago it looked like most cutting could be finished by the end of this week. Now it looks like it will take at least one more week to wrap things up. But there are still some spring barley crops that are not fully ripe.

While most of the harvest was easy and trouble-free, spring barley crops are now brackling quite badly and need to be harvested at the first opportunity to minimise head loss. Crops are going off colour also, which is taking the gloss of the straw.

Beans, generally the latest of the combinable crops, are now being cut also and the story so far is no better than had been anticipated. In grain crops it was the lack of soil moisture that was the most serious yield impediment, so fields and regions differed.

For beans it was most likely the heat that caused the greatest problems by causing an early end to flowering, flower abortion and the lack of pods. If this is the case, then the majority of crops may have little to look forward to with some early crops yielding 0.75-1.0t/ac.

Oilseed rape

Planting should really be completed this week as we move into September. Seed rates might be on the higher side of those I have given in recent weeks but we would still expect rapid and good establishment as moisture is unlikely to be limiting and ground is still warm.

Plants are likely to be emerging in five to seven days so watch out for flea beetle damage. This will appear as little shot-holes on the cotyledon surface and if this gets bad it will kill the plant. If you start to see more than a few holes on about 20% of the plants, it makes sense to apply an insecticide to halt the build-up. Options include Karate Zeon, Karis, Lambda, Markate 50, Sitrine and Sparviero.

While later planting will often show benefit from fertiliser use, this may be less critical this year due to the long dry conditions and reduced yield in the previous crop. However, canopy generated in the autumn will decrease what needs to be produced in spring when more nitrogen will be required and growth is much slower.

As often stated before, rape is a great user of organic manures but make sure they are incorporated quickly following application. Early variety vigour is also useful. If you don’t have organic manures, get some N and P into the seedbed – a bag per acre of 10:10:20 or 18:6:12 or DAP may suffice this year. Preferably apply this before planting.

Free seed

For anyone interested in growing hybrid winter barley, Seedtech is offering three growers the possibility of winning 5ha of seed for its new variety, Belfry. New or previous growers are welcome to enter by visiting www.seedtech.ie/competition and providing some brief information. Belfry has already been grown out on farms where it has shown good yields with good straw. The competition is now open but will close on midnight 9 September.