Arable

High infection levels of light leaf spot are being seen on susceptible oilseed rape varieties after incubation.

My list of wishes in my last column didn’t include the biggest flood in the Waveney Valley since 1968, but it happened nonetheless and on Christmas Eve a nearby measuring station recorded its highest ever water level up by nearly 0.5 metres.

With chlorothalonil (CTL) no longer available for cereal disease control, growers are looking at what alternatives they can use.

With drilling around the corner, Farmers Guardian explores key considerations for spring barley crops this season, whatever the end market.

Early aphid migration, spring drought and cercospora infection at levels never seen before led to the perfect storm for sugar beet crops in 2020.

A report by Andersons, commissioned by the NFU, said soaring labour costs could threaten the viability of the horticulture industry in the UK

2021 seems to be the year of the consultation. By the time you read this, the urea consultation will have closed, and no doubt growers will have had communication from Red Tractor regarding the opening of its V5 standards consultation.

Winter seems to be progressing in the normal way, with December being suitably wet and the last field destined for winter wheat will now be planted with spring wheat.

Happy New Year. I hope you all had some form of rest and normality over the festive period. Like many of you, I was happy to see the back of 2020 while filled with excitement for what the new year has in store for us. Well at this moment in time I am slightly concerned that 2021 is just 2020 reappearing in disguise.

How farmers clear their fields of cover crops is being investigated by a final year Harper Adams University student.