Harvest pushed back: Quite like last year, the prospects of a very early harvest seem to be pushed back by the return to damp and cooler weather. A few warm days this week may speed things up again but then we may be back to cool and wet. Whether or not this type of cooler weather helps grain fill in winter barley, only time and hectolitre weights will tell. For other crops the change in the weather represents a return to the risk of our more traditional diseases but, hopefully, crops that were very clean up to now will not see any surge in disease development.

It is inevitable that recent heavy or prolonged rain will cause some lodging, with this risk being far greater across the southern half of the country where crops are heavier.

Winter barley: Harvesting is possibly little more than a fortnight away in very early crops but most others have much longer to go and grain fill continues.

Crows continue to be a threat so do what you can to keep them out. It is likely that the risk of attack will ease as crops move to doughy-ripe stage. But continue to watch high-risk areas such as lodged patches, crop edges, along by wire fences etc. Prevention is more successful and more economical than cure.

There are a few blank grains in heads but generally nothing that constitutes a major worry. They say that a healthy plant can easily compensate for one or two blanks per ear but if you got five plus per ear that would be a problem and this could happen where frost hit during flowering.

Final sprays: Final fungicides should be applied on all but the latest crops at this stage so it is a matter of hoping for the best and that ear blight will not get a grip. There is nothing we can do about it at this stage.

It seems that the dry year has still given way to significant disease infection in parts of the south where the disease was always present in the crop. This will apply particularly to septoria, rhyncho and net blotch.

Oilseed rape: Watch crops for desiccation stage. Some early sown crops could be at the point of spraying off while this could be two or more weeks away in others. Bursts of high temperature could speed up maturation and hence the need for desiccation with glyphosate. Roundup Powermax may be more consistent on rape. Use plenty of water (200l/ha or more) to help get the glyphosate down into the canopy but avoid big droplets.

With a big spread on flowering in some spring rape crops, inspect them regularly for pollen beetle numbers. If an insecticide is necessary, spray very early or very late to avoid periods of bee activity.

Aphids: I see aphids beginning to build but perhaps they are better ignored. There is really nothing legal that one can do either way at this time of year anymore. Natural predators seem to do a pretty good job for us most years.