Great progress made: Six months of continuous wet gave way to an opportunity to get almost all of the spring crops planted in three weeks. Such was the recent weather that many growers could have a somewhat relaxed attitude to plating and to wait for conditions to be near perfect.

We have now moved into a spell of real growth too as air and soil temperatures start to drive on winter crops and speed up spring crop emergence. These things are now very welcome as we move into the business end of the growing season.

Planting: There is still an amount of spring barley to be planted but many growers will be finished by this weekend. We are still only into the end of the first week in April and this will leave the national crop early sown on average after all the bad weather. Any remaining spring barley can go in at 350 seeds/m2 as conditions are warming up and we would expect all establishment to be good.

Spring rape can go in now too. Seeding rates for this crop will tend to be 5-7kg/ha, the lower of the range being preferable when establishment is expected to be good. It is important for spring rape to establish fast and grow away quickly as this helps it compete with weeds and hopefully it will not require herbicide.

Maize will be going in now too, both under plastic and in the open. However, given the massive current disruption to all agricultural markets, it is more important than ever to have a market pinned down for this crop this year if it is being grown for sale. The same is true of fodder beet.

Market disruption: Most markets have been thrown into a level of turmoil following all the difficulties being encountered due to COVID-19. We might wish to believe that grain here is an exception because we do not depend on export markets but who knows what is going to happen in our livestock sectors.

Following an initial drop in grain prices, wheat picked up again as it is driven by demand and availability issues with milling wheat around the world. But it is important for us to realise that international maize prices have dropped very considerably as a result of the falloff in demand for distilling for bioethanol.

This is a 120-140mt market in the US alone so once it slows it will leave a lot of additional maize trying to find a home. However, this is not so much COVID-19-related as the drop in demand for fuel but there may be agreements soon that will limit oil production to restore some sanity into that market.

Winter crops: Final nitrogen of 70-90kg N/ha should be applied to winter rape once the early flower heads begin to pop up. Some of the more forward wheat and barley crops may be at stem extension and so time for the main N split. Bring winter barley up to 180kg N/ha, wheat up to 140kg after a break crop or 160kg N/ha total for now in other rotational slots and bring oats up to around 130kg N/ha.