Wheat breeder Bill Angus looks back over the past 40 years and highlights some of the successes and challenges of wheat breeding and growing over that time, while looking to the future with optimism.

Winter oilseed rape variety selection is always a theme on NIAB’s stand at Cereals, and last month’s event was no different.

It may not be the national problem it once was, but we ignore couch grasses at our peril, stresses Barrie Hunt in the next in our series of specialist articles.

A new active ingredient targeting septoria and other key diseases in wheat is expected to be approved in time for applications in spring 2020, Corteva Agriscience announced at a special briefing in late June.

A new soil nutrient scanning and mapping system, until now only available and in operation overseas, has been launched in the UK and is claimed to set a new standard for accuracy in precision agriculture.

Almost 600 customers and dealers attended the official opening of Amazone UK’s brand new Orchard Farm, Auckley, Doncaster headquarters and the event also provided an ideal opportunity to show-off the company’s latest agricultural innovations.

One of the UK’s two original John Deere main dealers has celebrated the opening of a prestigious new depot in Cambridgeshire.

Agco main dealer RW Crawford which started trading in Essex in 1980 buying and selling used machinery, recently opened its third depot – extending its coverage to include farmers and contractors in Sussex and Hampshire.

Despite being a profitable and effective break crop, and one which enables cereal growers to introduce alternative black-grass herbicides into their rotation, the long-term future of oilseed rape in the UK is coming under scrutiny.

Favourable weather conditions have led to reports of foliar disease in sugar beet crops.

The value of using a robust fungicide programme and selecting varieties with good disease resistance has been clearly demonstrated in Hutchinsons trials near Carlisle.

Growers need to give careful consideration as to how they protect potato crops through to the end of the season following a surge in reports of the disease across England and Wales.