Steve Heard: Spraying at last, but pylon works trauma

Other fields have now also been patch treated, and with the OSR crop now fast moving through stem extension, we need to be careful to time the final granular fertiliser applications before the crop gets too tall to travel over.

On a positive note, OSR leaf samples had tested to have good sulphur levels and so the sulphur fertiliser remained in store for another time.

Wheat varieties sown this year list good resistance to yellow rust and mildew, so have eased the decision to skip a T0 spray at this time, allowing me to concentrate on Atlantis applications with only our seed crops receiving an early fungicide application of 1.0l/ha Cherokee and 1.0l/ha chlormequat to start the growth regulator programme.

Target setting

The second nitrogen dose is now also being applied to wheats. This is about half of the remainder, with a target setting of 280kg/ha (114kg/acre) of 33.5 per cent AN product.

The actual application rate is decided by the cab roof-mounted N sensor and can vary from 20-200 per cent, but amazingly usually averages very close to the target total overall.

It’s little wonder that our electricity costs are so high: If agriculture were able to support a contracting business operated in a similar way to the guys commissioned to rework some electricity pylons we host, no-one would ever afford to eat.

Not only does it take an awful lot of hard-hat wearing employees (in equal numbers of suits and overalls), a very long time to actually do anything – the resulting mess they achieve is beyond even the capabilities of groups of drunken young farmers trying to drive over wet crops in a month-long sponsored messathon.

The consolation is that during the reworks, we have managed to remove four infield telegraph poles and, of course, a large compensation claim will follow.

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