Winter Oilseed Rape Tips

Expansion WOSR moving well now.

Second N application on yesterday. Keeping back 30 units for grain fill.

It’s a low plant population (low 20’s/m2) but the plants are big and strong and clean in terms of disease.
No pigeons this year is a blessing.

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Nearly gave in to ploughing peer pressure today but went spraying instead.
Gave the Expansion some Prothio, Metconazole, Boron, Magnesium & Zinc.

Hard to believe that the crop only has 20-25 plants/m2.

Grand calm day so used the 3D Defy nozzles, seriously good coverage right down the length of the plants.

36ECEDA8-7F49-44C0-9B7B-C41F835677F6.jpeg B5BEDC85-7F40-4B45-87BA-B1093D697CA6.jpeg
 
5863E6A1-BE20-45AC-AB61-1B560DD28D4C.jpeg 07D9B862-6AF1-438E-A25B-15F8CE00BEBB.jpeg F575B6E8-BCD2-4958-BECD-DEEE31E6F5C3.jpeg Final n split on the seed oilseed rape today , up to 150 units of n in total. Not as advanced as last year but a better crop and flowering in this heat is great. The bees were absolutely flat out, you could stand near the hives watching them and they wouldn’t mind you... I have also been told that they can be very busy before rain or bad weather as they know the weather and stock pile !!! Have seen it before where they have been very busy before rain
 
Some serious Light Leaf Spot to be found in the variety plots. Only 12 metres from last years crop.

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I was scratching my head as to why neither Nautius, Cameo Max or Pixxaro hadn’t killed these volunteer rape plants in the spring wheat.

The penny only dropped yesterday, I had a square of Clearfield rape here last year and it’s resistant to SU’s.

I’ll have to give it a run of Galaxy one of these evenings.

It would have been easy to kill with Duplosan if I had copped it earlier.

I wouldn’t use Clearfield rape unless you really needed to.

What appears to be Cabbage Root Fly larvae are having a right feed on it too.

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I was chatting to a lad today and he said he's having awful problems with small birds (sparrows according to him) going to town on the rape pods. Has anyone ever had that before or better still a method of scaring them off?
 
I was chatting to a lad today and he said he's having awful problems with small birds (sparrows according to him) going to town on the rape pods. Has anyone ever had that before or better still a method of scaring them off?
Yes, it’s finches. They usually pick on the edges of fields.

Not normally a big problem unless the field is small or you have a lot of finches. Birds seem to be hungry.

lead is the only cure. Whether that’s legal or humane is another matter.
 
Yes, it’s finches. They usually pick on the edges of fields.

Not normally a big problem unless the field is small or you have a lot of finches. Birds seem to be hungry.

lead is the only cure. Whether that’s legal or humane is another matter.

It seems he is worse than me with the flora and fauna, he changed his mind this evening and said finches as you've pointed out. At a guess there's 20 acres in the field and he told me the birds are in two bigish flocks. Would it be something to do with the dry weather that their usual food source is not available?
 
It seems he is worse than me with the flora and fauna, he changed his mind this evening and said finches as you've pointed out. At a guess there's 20 acres in the field and he told me the birds are in two bigish flocks. Would it be something to do with the dry weather that their usual food source is not available?
Birds are starving in this weather, never seen so many sick and dying crows, I'm sure it applies to all shapes and sizes
 
WOSR can get an aphid transmitted virus called Turnip Yellows Virus or TuYV for short. Typical symptoms are purple colouration of the leaves, often visible from January onwards.
I used to think I could see it in crops but never got them tested.

Last year (harvest 2029) we had two varieties called Ambassador & Artemis in official trials and also in local trials here.

Both varieties are agronomically good (have pod shatter resistance and stand well) but they also have genetic resistance to this virus.

They both topped the 2019 official trials (spread around the country) and the trials here at the trial site.
This made me think that this virus may well be present in Irish crops.
In the autumn of 2019, I got samples from 5 crops tested for the presence of TuYV.
3 of the samples were from non resistant varieties in South Tipperary. The other 2 samples were from East Cork - one from a susceptible variety and one from Ambassador (resistant).

When the results came back they were as follows: all samples had 15-20% virus infection except for the Ambassador sample which had 0% infection.

My mind always told me that as our climate suited aphids so well that we would likely be high risk for this virus; it looks like this is the case.

The pics below are virus infected plants.

Both Ambassador & Artemis are available commercially this autumn.


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I was asked if I wanted to submit a crop for the WOSR YEN.

https://www.yen.adas.co.uk/

It’s an initiative to look at what factors contribute to better yields in a number of crops (cereals , WOSR, beans).

It involves soil, foliage & seed tests to see what if any elements are lacking. plant populations etc.

It’s not a competition to see who can get the best yield. Instead it’s a competition to see who can get the best result considering the constraints of their particular soil & climate. Yields are taken on trust but if you tell lies, you are merely fooling yourself.
Its interesting to be involved
I was taking full plants from the crop today to send to the UK for testing.
E3E45CD2-F7C8-4CB1-83CC-8419EE1D1AD0.jpeg EFBCB614-B8B9-497D-8C24-7C562165C87C.jpeg 08D86739-A14F-4801-9091-51400DA0E041.jpeg
 
I was asked if I wanted to submit a crop for the WOSR YEN.

https://www.yen.adas.co.uk/

It’s an initiative to look at what factors contribute to better yields in a number of crops (cereals , WOSR, beans).

It involves soil, foliage & seed tests to see what if any elements are lacking. plant populations etc.

It’s not a competition to see who can get the best yield. Instead it’s a competition to see who can get the best result considering the constraints of their particular soil & climate. Yields are taken on trust but if you tell lies, you are merely fooling yourself.
Its interesting to be involved
I was taking full plants from the crop today to send to the UK for testing.
View attachment 80731 View attachment 80732 View attachment 80733
Very interesting, leaf and grain analysis are not something I've ever done, but I've often wondered about fine-tuning trace elements in fields rather than taking a punt at it and being happy as long as I can't see a deficiency.
 
I was asked if I wanted to submit a crop for the WOSR YEN.

https://www.yen.adas.co.uk/

It’s an initiative to look at what factors contribute to better yields in a number of crops (cereals , WOSR, beans).

It involves soil, foliage & seed tests to see what if any elements are lacking. plant populations etc.

It’s not a competition to see who can get the best yield. Instead it’s a competition to see who can get the best result considering the constraints of their particular soil & climate. Yields are taken on trust but if you tell lies, you are merely fooling yourself.
Its interesting to be involved
I was taking full plants from the crop today to send to the UK for testing.
View attachment 80731 View attachment 80732 View attachment 80733


697BF50B-E7AD-4882-8DD0-FCAFFBFCB31B.jpeg
Got the call from the yen lads too. They want to have a look at my spring wheat. Decided I‘d put together a gang of under 14’s to pull the wild oats before they come over. We stopped pulling the wild oats as I think we were losing too much straw value. Is there a mixed species category?
 
View attachment 80735
Got the call from the yen lads too. They want to have a look at my spring wheat. Decided I‘d put together a gang of under 14’s to pull the wild oats before they come over. We stopped pulling the wild oats as I think we were losing too much straw value. Is there a mixed species category?
It’s all about the diversity :Thumbp2:

Black seeds matter and all that.
 
View attachment 80735
Got the call from the yen lads too. They want to have a look at my spring wheat. Decided I‘d put together a gang of under 14’s to pull the wild oats before they come over. We stopped pulling the wild oats as I think we were losing too much straw value. Is there a mixed species category?

Is the pay good :Whistle2:
 
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