Beet yields have been strong and the prospects for the coming season look better – Arable Farming – Darryl Shailes

We tend not to look at the rain gauge too much in winter, we judge how wet it is by the number of times the garden has flooded and how often we have had to get the Grumman canoe out to get to the bottom of it. For those of a certain age, the Grumman aluminium canoe was featured heavily in the 1972 movie Deliverance starring Burt Reynolds.

Last year the garden flooded six or seven times and over the Christmas period we spent a lot of time canoeing, but there was not a banjo to be heard. So far this winter we’ve not been out once.

Last year we also had some significant frosts and even enough snow in the Waveney Valley to make a few tracks on some of the sloping meadows. This year the skis have stayed in the shed, although we are off to Austria for a week.

Hopefully we’ve got all the paperwork correct, a Covid-19 pass, negative PCR within 48 hours of landing and locator forms, but I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief when we actually get our masks off and we enter our accommodation. If we can’t get back, we’ll just have to manage.

So, with the current mild and relatively dry winter we’re experiencing, it is excellent news that the emergency authorisation for Cruiser SB (thiamethoxam) has been granted, should the conditions for its approval be met.

As with previous emergency authorisations, the Rothamsted model which predicts the virus yellows pressure for the season will have to be met. The model for this season has been set at a 19% infection level across the national crop. It all depends now on how much frost we have over the next few weeks and the outcome will be known on March 1.

This will mean the seed deliveries will be just in time and may have an effect on early drilling, but it is still very welcome. At least we know that we can trust the model as last year it predicted we didn’t need the seed dressing and we had very little aphid and hence virus pressure in the 2021 season when we compare it with 2020.

Also, for the 2022 season we now have a full approval for InSyst (acetamiprid) which is a great help as we don’t have to wait for another emergency approval to be granted.

Beet yields have been strong this season and with the improved price for 2022, plus the bonuses available making the price even stronger, depending on location and lifting date, the prospect for sugar beet at least for the coming season looks better.

I wonder what the potato season will bring?

So far, I’ve not heard of too much in the way of storage issues. When we consider the level of blight in the crop it’s interesting that blighted tubers don’t seem to be an issue. I saw more blight in the field in 2021, even where we had used a strong blight programme, than for a few seasons, but no blighted tubers, despite digging in badly infected spots.

It’s strange, almost an oxymoron, that the more blight we see in the canopy the less we see in the tubers, but throughout my working life this has rung true, apart from a couple of years ago when we were first aware of the issue with EU 37 A2 and its resistance to fluazinam.

Sprouting in store also seems to be under control in most situations. Maleic hydrazide appears to be working quite well and I think the industry has come a long way in its understanding of getting the most from the active in the last few seasons since CIPC has been withdrawn. We also have orange oil now approved, adding to the armoury for in-store sprout management.

So, at the moment, apart from input costs for the current season, potatoes also seem okay. Once again Happy New Year, let’s hope it remains so.