Arable News

An award-winning leaf wetness sensor is now available to English grape growers, promising real-time information about disease and frost risks to improve on-farm decision-making.

According to the results of the annual AHDB Planting and Variety Survey, the oilseed rape area has been replaced by an increased cereal area, notably wheat and oats.

Six row BYDV tolerant winter barley, Rafaela was introduced to the market last year from breeders Limagrain UK. A year on and the variety has proven the value of its BYDV tolerance trait, alongside offering valuable agronomic characteristics such as excellent performance in black-grass situations.

The management of virus-spreading aphids in winter cereal crops is the subject of a new AHDB research call.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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