Crop Health

Vermin control As the weather is starting to get colder, vermin such as rats and mice will be looking for somewhere to spend the winter indoors, and nowhere is better…

Pests Now is a good time to sample for free-living nematodes in fields planned for carrots or parsnips next year in order to assess the risk of nematode damage.

Forward planning for 2021 – sampling for nematodes It is never too early to sample soils for nematodes, particularly as sampling fields when the soil is moist gives the most…

Diseases Light leaf spot management should begin as soon as possible. The disease is spread upwards and outwards through the canopy by rain splash (so a high risk at the…

Pests The results of the SRUC annual survey of wheat bulb fly egg populations showed an average of 1.2 million wheat bulb fly eggs/ha, which is below the damage threshold…

Pests The change to colder and wetter weather has stopped the flight of aphids into crops. Growers need to be concerned about aphids from the green-bridge as well as any…

Slugs Slugs are a threat to all autumn sown crops under the wet conditions experienced by most crops just now. In oilseed rape, the crop needs to be protected from…

Weeds in autumn re-seeds The best start for an autumn re-seed is to have sprayed off the old sward with glyphosate to establish a sward free of perennial weeds. If…

Pests We are still finding cabbage root flies in our monitored fields of swedes. However, with the weather now turning cooler, the threat from slugs outweighs that of cabbage root…