Harvested Crops -Sept 2019

With a wetter than usual harvest this season, the risk of pests problems flaring up in stored grain in higher than usual, particularly if stores and associated machinery have not a good clean beforehand.  With many cereals being harvested at higher moisture contents than preferred, driers will be active this season, and grain needs to be 14% moisture content or less to prevent pests from breeding.

Note that the use of pirimiphos-methyl as a treatment to the store structure is no longer available – it can still be applied directly to grain.  Alternatives for store structure treatment include chlorpyrifos-methyl and deltamethrin.

The presence of blue-black beetles in harvested oilseed rape seed has been reported this season – a warning that there could be a problem in the next winter oilseed rape crop from cabbage stem flea beetle.  The beetles won’t harm the seed in the store and will be desperate to get out of the store and find an oilseed rape crop to feed on.  We advise you to contact your agricultural adviser or agronomist if you become aware of any pests to allow data to be fed into the Scotland wide monitoring system.