Some dryland farming areas have been very fortunate to be under very handy rainfall to begin the season. Unfortunately, other district’s rainfall has not been so kind.
Some dryland farming areas have been very fortunate to be under very handy rainfall to begin the season. Unfortunately, other district rainfall has not been so kind.
Due to the heavy and quick downpours, there have been quite a few paddocks that have crusted, causing some paddocks to have poor establishment. In these instances it doesn’t take a high establishment number to have good yield potential, but it does need to be even! As growers have finished seeding, emphasis now turns to weeds.
The paddocks and growers that waited for a good knockdown will pay dividends in the long run. The dirtiest paddocks seem to be where the weeds had germinated but not yet emerged when the knockdown and pre-em were applied (between 22 April and 3 May). Talk to your agro about a plan of attack for these crops going forward.
At time of writing, most Canola and Lupin crops are getting post-em grass weed sprays. A point to mention is clethodim’s sensitivity to frosty conditions. The freezing of the plant greatly reduces the ability of the chemical to translocate and reduces efficacy. Ideally, these applications should not be done within 3 days or 3 days following a frost. Easier said than done!
Canola is again proving to be a somewhat frustrating crop to grow in our part of the world, with a lot of thin crops around the area. Again, dry sowing is proving a winner giving better establishment numbers and we are already seeing the benefit of keeping the crop to a low cost production system in our dryland systems.
For more updates and reports, download the JUNE 2019 NEWSLETTER.