May 2010 Diary
With the busy harvest season rapidly approaching, Rob Bebbington's crops of Flash, DK Cabernet and Excalibur are in full flower.
Since my last report in February, the cold spring hasn't allowed any of the three varieties of oilseed rape to grow away from their fairly suppressed status coming out of the winter. There has been no real spurt of growth as the cold days and nights have kept the average temperature well below normal for this time of year.
The lack of rainfall during the spring has also limited growth with some fields almost getting too short of water despite the wet winter conditions that seemed to last forever. However, over an inch of rain at the beginning of May seemed to help. But with air and soil temperatures remaining relatively low, growth has still been very slow.
Rob Bebbington in his crop of Excalibur.
The balance of nitrogen was applied quite a while before flowering started as we felt that the crops were starting to look a little hungry for nutrients. In total, 125 units/acre of N have been applied, not allowing for sludge and farm yard manure applications. This is quite a light application but we felt that was all that was justified. We applied 50 units in early spring with the remaining 75 units going on as a balance on 15th April.
The only chemical we have used since the spring has been an application of Proline which was applied at 0.4l/ha on the 9th of May to protect against Sclerotinia. We are currently monitoring the situation to see if a follow up spray is required over the coming weeks.
The crop of Flash has also had a treatment of Maverick to combat a low level infestation of pollen beetles. Although Maverick is bee safe, we still chose to apply it early in the morning to be certain that the bee population was completely safe.
The Excalibur was the first crop to flower, and the whole area looks extremely even. The DK Cabernet and Flash have suffered a little due to a series of light frosts and their flowers are showing a less pronounced yellow colour in comparison. They are also noticeably shorter than the Excalibur, but that may prove to be beneficial at harvest time.
An application of Maverick has been used to control a low level pollen beetle infestation.
We have recently sold some of this year's crop to United Oilseeds on a forward contract for November at £242 per tonne. Since then the market seems to have firmed by about £4/tonne, but it is better to have done a deal that we are happy with rather than running the risk of waiting for prices to firm, only to see them fall away from us.
We have also recently received a few enquiries for rape straw from a number of local broiler units. Rape straw is more absorbent than wheat straw and is less dusty, making it an ideal bedding material. This year's rape straw should therefore trade at a similar price to wheat straw and will provide a welcome boost to our finances.