The cruel reality of a hard winter.



Bottom end of the same field.

Winter barley looking very sad, reality is that when you do the plant counts, the numbers just aren't there.

The best of the winter barley in this same field....

Click on the picture to see in full size, clearly shows exposed roots.

Another field of winter barley looking beyond recovery.

Einstein winter wheat, drilled in the normal timeslot, but this area of the field lies wet, normal year would have been OK.

If there were small roots, one could be forgiven for thinking too late drilled. However, there's plenty of roots here, most plants have really good root development, just not enough when you have this much frost heave in these heavy wet soils.

Contast this picture of late drilled Istabraq winter wheat with the Einstein above. This was drilled after maize in late October, but because it is slightly drier ground, not problems with frost lift.

And this is how you would expect the crop to be looking at this time of year. Panorama, fantastic group 2 winter wheat, wildly underated just like Istabraq. This was planted 1st week October 2010, drier ground near Bude.  Just shows the difference of 10 miles as regards factors affecting crop performance.