Agronomy

With potato crops making up for a slow start to the season, Farmers Guardian catches up with agronomists in the East and the South West for the latest agronomy advice.

Stewardship guidelines aimed at protecting workers hand-pulling bolters and weed beet from sugar beet crops were introduced by Bayer in 2018 with the intention of promoting product stewardship and operator safety.

Hutton Criteria disease warnings have been declared in key potato-growing areas.

In conjunction with Bayer we will be keeping track of winter wheat development over two cultivation strategies, and using Rapid Disease Detection results to monitor disease progress through the season.

Practical glyphosate application guidelines, published by the Weed Resistance Action Group (WRAG), aims to help arable growers reduce the increasing risk of glyphosate resistance developing in grass-weeds.

The result of the temptation to drill earlierlastautumn to ensure crops were safely in the ground is evident insome fields as highnumbers of black-grass headsemerge above the crop.

Farmers are being asked to assist in a new study looking at the spread of rat’s tail fescue, a grass-weed that is already posing problems in France, Switzerland, Spain and Denmark - and is now starting to take hold in England

What a rollercoaster ride this season is turning out to be; cold, dry, hot and wet, spring has had a bit of summer, autumn and winter in its making.

Spray quality is key to achieving full protection of the ear and deposition should override output.

McCain has pledged to implement regenerative agriculture practices across 100 per cent of its global potato acreage — representing 150,000 hectares by 2030.