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April, to date, has been an exceptionally dry month, and the top layers of soil are now very dry. The subsoil however is still very wet, so well established winter crops are not suffering but some late drilled spring crops in the area are showing a patchy appearance due to uneven germination. Cracks are already appearing on heavier soils, which does not normally occur until things get warm and dry in May & June. The plant roots on some of these areas have not penetrated a great distance downwards due to the extremely wet winter. It is to be hoped that root development will be able to follow the moisture downwards!
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| Cracks due to drought in a crop of wheat on heavier clay ground. |
The weed free strip which controls weeds like
cleavers and brome but also allows wildlife to travel round
field margins freely |
All the spraying and fertiliser applications are up to date, with the winter barleys receiving 0.4 kg/ha Unix(cyprodinil), 0.45 lt/ha Acanto (picoxystrobin) and 3.0 lt/ha manganese. Rhynchosporium was starting to make an appearance and as temperatures increased growth rates were increasing. Winter wheat has only shown a significant amount of growth in the last 10 days and is still free of disease; I am hoping to hold off until early May before applying the first fungicide. The second application of nitrogen fertiliser (70 kg/ha) is currently being applied to wheats but the rather windy conditions are not ideal for spreading.
Walking the crops shows that, in general, the autumn applied residual herbicides have worked very well. There will be approximately 5 hectares to overspray using Starane (fluoxypyr), primarily for cleavers, where, probably due to waterlogging, the herbicides have not performed so well. The field boundaries of first wheats after Canola are always swamped by cleavers and these will be sprayed too.
I have done my annual walk around every field with the hand lance, applying Harvest (glufosinate ammonium) to a strip about 250mm wide between the vegetation in the hedge bottom (the 'dykeback') and the crop. This is useful to control problem weeds like sterile brome and cleavers. Using Harvest allows perennial 'beneficial' weeds to regrow later in the season but all the 'nasty' annuals are removed. Doing it by hand, although (much) more labour intensive makes a better job than by using a sprayer as the jet can be controlled exactly to hit or miss particular plants.
Canola is in almost in full flower now and will receive no more inputs. A local beekeeper has set up about 25 hives in one of the larger fields, and the bees are obviously enjoying this large amount of nectar on their doorstep. A few extra insects are always beneficial in assisting with pollination and hence seed set, although the number of insects living in a crop of Canola is colossal.
A small pond, which is fed by a stream, has been gradually silting due to surface water from a poorly drained neighbouring farm and a road. It was drained a (by means of a sluice I installed) and a digger called to do some 'dredging'. The silt, which will be very good soil was spread on a low lying part of a field adjacent to the pond.
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| Two views of the digger cleaning out the pond. |
...and a view after refilling. |
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A small area of spring beans has been sown this year and they are emerging now. They are an experiment, being grown on a small paddock which was grass for several years and is no longer required. The variety is Maris Bead which makes them suitable for pigeon feed etc. There is very little Pea Weevil damage as I suspect that there are very few about because we have not grown other pulses recently.
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| The field of beans just emerging |
There is little weevil damage, but the leaf arrowed shows the characteristic notches in the edges caused by this insect. |
The continuous job of repairing fences and replacing some gates has been ongoing in between larger jobs.
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