Most have had difficulty getting a clean run at planting due to frequent rain and poor drying.

Much of the recent planting has been done by one-pass but some ground needs to be left a while post ploughing.

That’s a risk with the current weather pattern. As always, rainfall amounts have been quite variable for the past week, ranging from 6.2mm at Oak Park to 35.2mm at Roches Point.

Hopefully there will still be a few weeks of planting opportunity and that we may see some settled weather.

Soil temperatures are running from 2.5° to 4° above normal for the past week so there should be plenty of life in the ground.

Rolling

Rolling must be questioned on the basis of soil conditions but you need to pre-empt more problems if you can’t roll.

Rolling can help establishment, slow or prevent slug damage and tighten the soil to help prevent root-roll lodging.

There are increasing reports of serious slug problems and high soil temperatures help them. Birds could become a bigger problem from now on but we hope that warmer soils will still provide feed elsewhere.

Undressed seed should not be considered from here on. Planting into take-all risk fields should now carry less risk but perhaps delay a little longer towards the south.

Challenging ground conditions mean that seed rates should be increased. Plant winter wheat around 320-350 seeds/m2 – 175-190 kg/ha (11-12 st/ac) for 55g seed – more for bigger seed.

Any remaining winter barley will need to go in above 190 kg/ha (12 st/ac) to provide 350 plants/m2 (55g seed) as both germination and establishment are likely to drop from here on.

Complete oat planting at 350-380 seeds/m2 or 140-155 kg/ha (9-10 st/ac) for 40g seed.

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Tillage management: BYDV

Tillage management: spraying