Article taken from The Scottish Farmer
Eastern Scotland’s arable farmers need to ‘protect, protect and protect’ against disease in cereal and oilseed rape crops according to Grant Reid, Agrovista’s Angus-based agronomist.
He said that overwintered wheat, barley and oilseed rape is looking good and healthy throughout the majority of the east, but it is vital that crop potential is protected by the right programmes – and crucially – correctly timed sprays.
“Compared with the unnaturally mild winter of 2013/14, we’ve been helped by this year’s much more normal weather patterns, with frost helping to dry out many waterlogged fields, as well as keeping much of the early season mildew at bay.”
But he warns that spores of many diseases – including mildew, as well as septoria in wheat and light leaf spot in oilseed rape – make new leaves on all crops vulnerable to infection.
“The main issues are likely to be in cereal crops, despite the frost,” he says. “Septoria is already visible on older leaves, and it won’t take much for this to spread on to emerging new leaves.
“In oilseed rape, light leaf spot is top of my list of targets as crops start to extend, because many growers didn’t manage to apply a fungicide spray last autumn.”
He added, that whilst he hasn’t yet seen any light leaf spot, the weather conditions predispose that it will be lurking. “Rothamsted’s light leaf spot forecast for the area suggests that 87% of crops are 25%, or less, affected, which is three times the level predicted for last year’s forecast.”
Other priorities in some parts of the east and north east will be the application of a spring herbicide and possibly rolling, where frost heave has been particularly a problem.
His early spring recommendations for winter barley are to apply to T0 fungicide of Torch (spiroxamine) for early disease control and the addition of Flexity (metrafenone) where mildew is present. He also recommends the addition of the PGR Canopy (mepiquat chloride + prohexadione-calcium), to help with tiller retention, along with some manganese and copper.
For winter wheat, he recommends T0 sprays based around cyproconazole, with some Canopy PGR and manganese. For crops with mildew present I will be adding in some Corbel (fenpropimorph) and/or Flexity to gain early control.
Oilseed rape with forward canopies will have a lot of nitrogen within plant biomass, so some crops may need some early growth regulation to reduce the likelihood of lodging. For the stem extension sprays, Mr Reid recommends inclusion of crop nutrients, such as Multitrace-B. For the fungicide at this timing, an option could be a tebuconazole based fungicide. If the crop is very forward, he suggests that the tebuconazole could be mixed with Caryx (metconazole + mepiquat chloride); the only oilseed rape PGR product on the market which cites reductions of lodging on its product label.
Eastern Scotland’s arable farmers need to ‘protect, protect and protect’ against disease in cereal and oilseed rape crops according to Grant Reid, Agrovista’s Angus-based agronomist.
He said that overwintered wheat, barley and oilseed rape is looking good and healthy throughout the majority of the east, but it is vital that crop potential is protected by the right programmes – and crucially – correctly timed sprays.
“Compared with the unnaturally mild winter of 2013/14, we’ve been helped by this year’s much more normal weather patterns, with frost helping to dry out many waterlogged fields, as well as keeping much of the early season mildew at bay.”
But he warns that spores of many diseases – including mildew, as well as septoria in wheat and light leaf spot in oilseed rape – make new leaves on all crops vulnerable to infection.
“The main issues are likely to be in cereal crops, despite the frost,” he says. “Septoria is already visible on older leaves, and it won’t take much for this to spread on to emerging new leaves.
“In oilseed rape, light leaf spot is top of my list of targets as crops start to extend, because many growers didn’t manage to apply a fungicide spray last autumn.”
He added, that whilst he hasn’t yet seen any light leaf spot, the weather conditions predispose that it will be lurking. “Rothamsted’s light leaf spot forecast for the area suggests that 87% of crops are 25%, or less, affected, which is three times the level predicted for last year’s forecast.”
Other priorities in some parts of the east and north east will be the application of a spring herbicide and possibly rolling, where frost heave has been particularly a problem.
His early spring recommendations for winter barley are to apply to T0 fungicide of Torch (spiroxamine) for early disease control and the addition of Flexity (metrafenone) where mildew is present. He also recommends the addition of the PGR Canopy (mepiquat chloride + prohexadione-calcium), to help with tiller retention, along with some manganese and copper.
For winter wheat, he recommends T0 sprays based around cyproconazole, with some Canopy PGR and manganese. For crops with mildew present I will be adding in some Corbel (fenpropimorph) and/or Flexity to gain early control.
Oilseed rape with forward canopies will have a lot of nitrogen within plant biomass, so some crops may need some early growth regulation to reduce the likelihood of lodging. For the stem extension sprays, Mr Reid recommends inclusion of crop nutrients, such as Multitrace-B. For the fungicide at this timing, an option could be a tebuconazole based fungicide. If the crop is very forward, he suggests that the tebuconazole could be mixed with Caryx (metconazole + mepiquat chloride); the only oilseed rape PGR product on the market which cites reductions of lodging on its product label.