Wheat

All the crops I saw were clean but septoria will be on the move following recent rain. Septoria has visibly moved in crops in north Leinster over the past week and it is likely to have done so in many other parts of the country also.

I saw fields of Avatar and JB Diego which were moving along nicely. These were sown in the second half of October and the third last leaf is now fully emerged.

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The Diego was sown in more difficult land and some of it was lost due to water retention but what remains is largely fine with just a few weak spots.

Some plants in the thin areas have up to 10 viable tillers present.

The Avatar was on kinder land and these crops were full. This variety had a deeper green colour and was more erect but was broadly similar in growth stage.

Oats

Husky winter oats had the flag leaf emerging and the stems appeared relatively stiff in comparison to other crops I walked recently. There were no foliar diseases and I saw no symptoms of fusarium on the stem.

I saw a lot of early April sown Husky which was at the three to four leaf stage and moving into stem extension. This crop showed a lot of the shot-blast symptom caused by hailstone showers.

Spring barley

One field of March-sown Propino spring barley was now very leafy with lots of healthy tillers and foliage. This crop had moved into stem extension and the first node was virtually at the definition stage of two centimetres from the base of the plant. Hail damage was also evident in this crop.

There were a lot of big strong weeds in this crop.

Another field of spring barley, sown in early April, was at the four-leaf stage. It had good establishment but there was some leather-jacket damage evident.

Plants were at GS14 but some already had up to six tillers present, with one or two coleoptile tillers visible along with secondary tillers.

It was common to find four to six tillers per plant, most of which could be fertile.