Wheat varieties in a bearish market......Choices for 2014/15 season.

With winter barley yields proving to be consistent and high this season, questions about the cost of wheat production this season are rearing themselves daily. With on farm prices off the combine being touted at less than £120/ton, some serious head scratching is taking place in the south west as to what to plant this coming season.

What has been noticeable this season is the wet weather. Right from the outset, October through to May was wet and very mild, record storm surges, high winds, day after day with only a few days respite between storms to get the late planted crops in (after maize, potatoes). The early drilled fields got a flying start and where possible had to have a few sprays of insecticide to keep the aphids off. Seed dressed with Deter had enough protection early on, but this soon faded with the weather onslaught.

With wet mild weather, early ingress of disease was inevitable with Septoria levels in the early new year being high, along with a lot of yellow rust in susceptible varieties. With the ground being so wet and soils relatively warm, plants continued to produce biomass, but not much root as the soils were waterlogged. This continued all the way up till May when the rain abated and temperatures climbed. This was ideal conditions for maize establishment, but some wheats with small root systems started to show signs of strain.

The very mild and wet winter has had another significant effect on winter barley and wheat, namely Take-All. In Lattitude seed treated crops, drilled in early October, there still has been crop damage, that drilled in late September is worse, particularly in fields that weren't rolled post drilling. I have seen Take-All effects in winter barley as bad as in wheat, even barley drilled late October down in Cornwall. In some wheat crops that were drilled as second wheats early (late September) through into the middle of October, it is possible to see which are the early drilled and those that went in last, purely by the degree of Take-All infection in the fields. In other instances, over-yeared seed from 2012 that only had single purpose dressing, was planted in fields following spring barley, purely due to the results of cropping rotation mayhem in 2012, with disastrous results being seen now. I have seen instances of Take-All symptoms in winter barley following winter oats following wheat too, some a complete right-off.

This year, the two cereal demonstration sites were drilled at quite different times, the site at Bude went in early, 25th September, into ideal seedbed conditions. Some varieties have two plots looking at over-yeared seed, a product of the very wet autumn of 2012 when a lot of seed never got planted. Given the issues of 2012, it is hardly surprising that farmers were keen to get the winter crops in early in 2013 to avoid the same issues again. The Tregony site however was opposite, originally planned to go in October, weeks went by with conditions hopeless, until a little window opened the last week of November that allowed the plots to be sown 2nd December. The mild weather definitely helped this lot survive, although some varieties were really up against it and those plots looked appallingly thin. This field was sprayed with Multimax at the earliest opportunity (phosphite and potash foliar feed) to stimulate root and shoot development, which had the desired effect and thickened the plots up well.

Tregony demonstration site mid July.

Bude demonstration site 23rd May with untreated area showing yellow rust in susceptible varieties.

Winter Barley plots at Tregony, Matros in foreground, then Harlequin, Cadillac, California. Matros in rest of field. This field followed winter wheat and suffered some Take-All effects.

In the previous years (2012 and 2013) Avatar winter wheat has been the top yielding variety at both sites, in early and late drilling slots, wet year and dry year. A son of Istabraq and the top perfuming variety in Ireland and Scotland, it has proved itself as a big yielder in this maritime climate of the south west. A variety that was half a percentage point off going on the HGCA recommended list in 2012, it is a very reliable and farmer friendly variety. In trials at Exeter going back to 2008, it has always been in the top 5 in terms of outright performance and across a wide range of sites in the HGCA trials system it performed well. It was the variety that caught my eye back in 2009 at Exeter, I started including it in farm trials in 2010 and it has proven a very consistent and forgiving variety. planted early, it doesn't get too proud and full of disease like Istabraq can (thats why its always advised to plant Istabraq late down here, possibly the best wheat variety after maize), planted late (end of February, it has amazing tillering capacity and a fantastic yield potential. I have a case of it being planted the 19th of March this year and it has flowered and produced a great crop. That is nearly as forgiving as Claire! Due to it's high tillering capacity, it lends itself to the Claydon system of minimum tillage, as can be seen below.

Avatar drilled in November with a Claydon drill, near Crediton.

Avatar in a field thats been continuous wheat for 30 years, looking fabulous. Drilled at 230 seeds/sqm in late mid September 2013.

Avatar produces a good bright sample with a high specific weight.

Since starting this we have now harvested about 400acs of wheats, predominantly Istabraq and Avatar. Yields for Istabraq are in the 3.75t/ac range with a good specific weight, with Avatar in second wheat/continuos wheat slots doing the same and between 3.8 and 4.25t/ac in the 1st wheat slots, again with very good specific weights. There are are a few results that I am waiting on from the Crediton and Truro areas, but at the minute yields are promising for a difficult year.

I am hoping we will have the trial plots harvested in the near future which will then give us an indication of where the new varieties like Zulu, Panacea, Evolution and Revelation sit in the mix. Revelation does look promising at the minute, Panacea may surprise with its yield too.

More to follow soon.

Maize Planting Checklist 2014

So, as we stand on the brink of planting, here are 10 practical things to watch out for if you are having a contractor plant your maize crop for you. All too often when walking fields I come across the signs that not all planters are doing the job they should be, namely planting seed at a uniform depth, with nice even spacings between plants and with plants growing at the same speed.

The field has been cultivated well, there's a lovely seedbed just waiting to be drilled and you have called the contractor and the seed and fertiliser is in the field waiting to go. So here's a few things to look out for to make sure the drill is fit for purpose to do your job. Don't just assume because he has just finished drilling 40 hectares for your neighbour everything is hunky-dory!

1. Whilst the tractor is standing with the drill in the air, check the machine is level with the rear axle of the tractor on the link arms. You won't believe how many times I find machines hooked up to tractors that aren't level.

2. If the drill is an Accord/Kvernland type that has a shoe/coulter on each planter unit that creates the slot into which the seed is placed, have a look at the bases to make sure there is still plenty of 'meat' on the shoes and that they aren't worn down to the extent the seed pipe is visible. This is important, because if the plates are very worn, the shoe tends to smear, rather than cut a slot for the seed to drop into. Also, the reduced clearance tends to cause the seed to bounce more and get dragged by the body more leading to bunching and irregular planting depth.

3. If you are putting placement fertiliser down like DAP/MAP, are these shoes all the same depth?

4. When the drill is lowered to the ground to load the seed hoppers, did the depth control wheels hit the ground at the same time (if the machine is level behind the tractor)? If the depth wheels are an inch out, you can guarantee the outside planter boxes are going to placing seed an inch plus deeper than the boxes on the opposite side, worse the wider the machine is. You can tell this post emergence when there are 2-4 rows that are later emerging than the rest every 6 rows across the field (if an 8 row planter).

5. Once the drill hoppers are full and ready to go, test to see if the seed and fertiliser is flowing evenly out of all the pipes. Clear plastic containers you get from Indian/Chinese take-aways are really useful to catch seed and fertiliser when doing this test so you don't waste anything. Quite often, especially after the machine has done a fair acreage, DAP powder can bind to the inside of the pipes causing a constriction thereby reducing the amount flowing down the pipes. (or if the machine has been put away without cleaning them out at the end of the previous season!). This will cause striping where you get a line, or lines where the plants are paler than the rest.

6. Check the seed rate! There is nothing worse if you are growing a crop of maize for a specific use, like grain for crimping or combining where you plant at a lower seed rate than forage maize and you find out post event that the seed rate is too high, or too low. It really does affect yield.

Satisfied the drill is ready to go, then let him line up and make a start.

7. As the machine is going along, walk alongside at look at the headstock on the planter. If the machine is 'leaning' forward, or backward, its wrong. Forward leaning generally leads to the placement fertiliser being put too deep, backwards and its too shallow (you might even see granules on the surface). Forward leaning tends to also lift the press wheels at the back so the seed doesn't get good contact with the soil around it.  Backward leaning and the seed could be going too deep, or too shallow and it doesn't get enough soil covering it.

8. Are the wheel eradicator tines actually doing what they are supposed to, taking out the tractor wheel marks and loosening the soil where the tractor has just driven?

9. Check the depth of the seed across the whole drill width by scraping away the soil and looking in each row for the seeds. The seed dressing is bright pink or red for a reason, it makes them very easy to find. If you cannot find them, stop the planter and check why not. When I check, I clear about 2 meters in each row as this allows me to check depth, spacing and if the machine calibrated properly.
If the speed is right, the seed placement should be right with little bunching evident. I know some of the new drills can go quite fast and still be very accurate, however the older ones can't.

10. After a few bouts, check the overlap/underlap on the outside rows. If the bout markers aren't right, then the sprayer is not going to do its job correctly either. It looks really bad when there is a nice weedy path between every sprayer bout width, or theres a stunted crop where its had a double dose of herbicide.

Anyone can grow maize, but it takes a real effort to grow a great crop of maize as it is a lazy plant, it will show up every deficiency, fault and inconsistency in the field.

If the contractor does a good job, pay him promptly!