Take steps to protect your increasingly valuable grain against earlier-than-normal rat infestations this harvest, farmers across the UK have been warned.

One of the wettest summers on record and continued waterlogging in the run-up to harvest will drive rats from fields and into farmsteads relatively early. Even though they may not be immediately obvious, unless migrating rats are controlled effectively from the start farm infestations are likely to become particularly problematic throughout the coming winter.

"Long experience teaches us that flooded fields and ditches lead rats to relocate to drier  farmstead accommodation as soon as stored food supplies permit," explains Gavin Wood of
rural hygiene specialists, BASF Pest Control Solutions.

"We know the ground is currently wetter than most of us can remember at this time of year. And we know large amounts of grain are accumulating in store. So it's essential to be prepared to tackle a major early rat challenge. Especially with grain prices rising at the rate they are.

To combat this season's particular threat, Gavin Wood recommends a simple four point
control plan:

1. Check your grain storage buildings carefully for damage to walls and doors, and make them as rodent proof as possible.
2. Locate a series of baiting containers in key areas around the outside perimeter of you grain stores as they are filled to familiarise rats to their presence.
3. Monitor the external sides of your buildings, rough ground and silage, hay and straw stacks every week for rat droppings, rat runs and gnawing damage.
4. Bait the containers with a maximum palatability rodenticide for the greatest speed and reliability of uptake as soon as you detect any rat activity.

"The ready supply of fresh grain means you must use the most potent and palatable bait available if damage and contamination is to be prevented," stresses Gavin Wood. "Be careful, though, you can only legally use the most inherently potent single feed rodenticides  indoors to safeguard non-target wildlife, livestock and pets.

"This means that with rats, which live and primarily need to be controlled outside buildings, you have to use a less powerful active. Which makes it even more important to use a bait with extra palatability, like Neosorexa Gold.   The best farm-wide rodenticide on the market, the most stringent research shows its patented foraging grain technology leads rats eat a lethal dose much more rapidly than with other grain baits under farm conditions."

As well as the most palatable farm-wide bait, Gavin Wood is adamant that robust, early control has to be a key priority on farm this season, pointing to studies that show leaving control until infestations become obvious means large well-entrenched populations which may require four
or five times the amount of rodenticide to overcome.

"At the start of a typical infestation you may only have than 10 rats to deal with and these will be concentrated in a relatively small area," he points out. "But their breeding rate means you can have hundreds of individuals after only two or three months. At the same time, competitive pressures ensure they disperse over a wider area, making them even more difficult and costly to control."