• Late sown crops remain at risk from wheat blossom midge
• Watch out for grain aphids
• Fusarium ear blight risk high

Winter Wheat

Wheat crops across the country are starting to flower and even the very late sown crops are now at early ear emergence. They are late to reach this stage though by at least two to three weeks. Normally one would expect late developing crops to catch up with the norm as the season progresses but this year they seem to have remained resolutely behind. However, crops in general do seem to have improved and whilst still remaining shorter than normal they at least are now looking like they may produce a reasonable yield. It will all depend on how long a grain fill period we get and how free they remain of disease.

Crops that are flowering have now escaped any possible damage from hatching wheat blossom midge. Unfortunately they have started to flower in near perfect weather conditions for Fusarium, warm and muggy with the occasional wet spells. T3 fungicides are being applied as a matter of urgency.

Foliar disease levels are reported as low in treated crops but in untreated trial plots it is evident that Septoria has moved up the canopy. At the ADAS trial site in Hereford Septoria was obvious in the bottom of the crops this week and some plots were showing Septoria lesions on leaf 2. Yellow rust was also very evident at this site with Torch, torched by it.

Supernumerary spikelets are common in certain varieties this year and more so at colder sites, no doubt as a result of the long photoperiod these crops endured during the cold spring.

Aphids need watching as the ears develop with sightings of grain aphids in the West this week. Later sown crops may be subject to attack from both midge and aphids this year if conditions are right.

Weed control has been relatively good this year although the extensive use of sulphonyl-urea herbicides in the spring has left its mark on some crops showing as pale patches on lower leaves. Reports suggest that brome grasses have been less evident this year. Blackgrass control has been its usual patchy best and now's the time to check for resistance.

Winter Oilseed Rape 

This has been a very protracted flowering season. The cold spring certainly held crops back at the beginning of the season and it wasn't until late April that crops started to flower. This was at least two weeks later than last year and nearly a month later than in the 2007 and 2008 when crops had started to flower by the end of March. Last year most crops across England had finished flowering by the end of May.

This year, many of the early sown crops and those that avoided the ravages of pigeons are now turning predominantly green again, some three weeks later than last year. But it is the late sown or backward crops that seem to have had a new lease of life over the last few weeks and are continuing to flower. Oilseed rape has always had the ability to surprise in the way that it compensates for poor or uneven growth; the surprise this year has been how long it has taken to kick in.  However, this long flowering period is causing concern as individual plants are now carrying top racemes which have pods set whilst lower ones are still flowering.

In the South, East and across the Midlands crops are reported as ranging from pod set stage and loosing flowers quickly to still at mid-flowering for the backward crops. Crops further north are reported as mainly mid to late flowering. The other common observation is that crops are considerably shorter than usual with some agronomists commentating that if you haven't grown dwarf varieties before you have this year. Or as one farmer commented this week that's the first time he's driven through flowering rape without the touching the crop.

Pest levels have generally been low this year with many saying that threshold levels were never met for pollen beetles even in the backward crops. This seems to be true of spring oilseed rape crops too. Seed weevil numbers crept up at the beginning of the month but seem to have reached threshold in the South and East only.

Weed control hasn’t been brilliant this year. The wet autumn meant that herbicides got washed out and that combined with open crops has given spring weeds the opportunity to germinate and grow, needless to say they have taken the opportunity.

The main concern now though is what approach to take pre-harvest. Agronomists around the country are debating how to determine the correct time to apply desiccants to crops showing marked variation in growth stages. It has been a general rule of thumb that crops get desiccated during the Royal Show week, if the show was still going that would be early July. This year it is likely to be mid-July at the earliest. It may be that some crops will have to be harvested in stages, not an attractive proposition.