Winter crops have great potential this season according to Brett Brothers agronomist Paul Colgan.

Paul is happy to have T1 fungicides applied to winter wheat.

He said septoria has ravaged the bottom of crops, so it is a credit to agronomists for keeping crops clean and to work with farmers to get timings right.

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He went strong with Questar and ProTeb at T1 and will likely come back with Revystar at T2.

“The septoria was ravaging on the leaves. Yes, we’ve had 10 days, maybe two weeks of dry weather, but one drop of rain in that heat and - bang - you’ll be glad you have the big power out in the field.”

All crops received a T0 of sulphur and Comet.

Paul commented: “It’s great to have the pleasure of going out into these crops at the right timings. You can sit easier at night when you have the T0 on your wheat.

"In fairness, wheat was a good crop to come out of the winter. Normally wheat is an awful crop to look at coming out of the winter in February and March. It was a pleasure to walk it this year. There was nothing missing and plenty of plant count in it.

“Oats, again, a pleasure to watch powering on in the spring. Barley is mixed. There are some great crops out there and very low crops.

“Oats came out of the winter absolutely fabulous. It’s clean right to the butt. There’s no mildew as far as I’m concerned, around Kilkenny anyway, there’s no mildew or crown rust in oats.”

Spring barley

Paul has a busy few days ahead of him walking spring barley crops for herbicides. On aphicides, he said that will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

He noted that there are two crops of spring barley out there, those sown at the end of March and early April and then the crops sown towards the end of April. He said patience will be needed on spring barley to get timings right on aphicides and weed sprays.

You can hear more from Paul on this week’s Tillage Podcast.