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Crop watch: Take time to assess pasture – Farmers Weekly – Helen Brown

Helen Brown looks at agronomic issues in the North (Cumbria) ...

An exceptionally cold January is behind us, and the weather is warming up and starting to slowly raise soil temperatures. Winter wheats and barleys are still in the early tillering stage and generally look well.

Recent cold weather is likely to have slowed development of diseases such as septoria, but as the milder weather returns, crops should be monitored to assess spread of disease and plan spring disease-control strategies.

In the warming temperatures, cereal crops – especially those with poorer establishment and thinner plant populations – would benefit from early nitrogen to encourage tiller retention, where conditions allow.

However, avoid large doses of N this early in the season, as root systems will not be able to fully use them in this early growth period. Compounds should be considered for early application to ensure freely available NPKS in the upper soil root zone.

Assessing pasture

This a great time to spend some time assessing grassland and making management decisions for next year, before spring arrives and we all become busy.

Consider which of your grasslands performed poorly last season and the reasons why – whether that be regression of sown species, ingression of weeds, poor soil structure or nutrient deficiency. This will give ample time to take soil samples and assess soil structure, ready to correct issues such as lime or compaction before reseeding this spring or autumn.

A good way to assess the percentage of sown species remaining in a ryegrass-based sward is to pull up plants and assess how many have the characteristic red/purple stem base of ryegrass. When more than 50% of the sward is made up of weed species such as annual meadowgrass, it is advisable to consider reseeding, as weed grasses are inefficient users of nitrogen.

Annual meadowgrass has a nitrogen response of 33%, compared with 100% for perennial ryegrass, wasting money and reducing grass yield significantly – especially with the current high fertiliser prices.

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