Yorkshire Farming Business Tackles Take-All Challenge

Cambridge (August 2003) - Take-all seed treatment has helped the Yorkshire-based JSR Farming Group bring second wheat drilling forward closer to the optimum timing and significantly reduce the first wheat yield gap.

"Yield remains the single biggest factor in reducing production costs," stressed the company's technical director Philip Huxtable. "Not least because an eight tonne wheat crop has to bear the same fixed costs as a 10 tonne plus crop. So we are looking to optimise yields above all else. Which is why we can't take the risk of a damaging disease like tTake-all in the 440ha of second wheat (approximately 30% of total wheat area) we grow as a vital element in our combinable crop rotation.

"We are always trying to reduce the yield gap between first and second wheat," he explained. "If we could drill our second wheat at the optimum date for our area - around September 25th - I'm convinced we'd be able to optimise yields across our entire wheat area to in excess of 10t/ha.

"Removing the risk of earlier drilling is the key to achieving this and that's exactly what we've found the specialist seed treatment Latitude (silthiofam) does, giving us the vital early season protection from infection we need.

"Unlike some seed dressings, Latitude doesn't delay emergence, and current research points to bringing our second wheat sowing forward by as much as 10 days. This would allow us to start drilling in mid/late-September instead of early October to take advantage of better seedbeds and weather conditions.

"Latitude helps us achieve a greater degree of uniformity across second wheat fields, associated with an increase in specific weight," he says. "Whilst difficult to quantify from season to season, we see a narrowing of the field disparity between first and second crop yields, which allows second wheat to be commercially justified within the rotation."

Impressive the production benefits may be, but they are by no means the only advantage the 4000-hectare JSR arable farming operation at Southburn near Driffield gains from seed treatment. Mr Huxtable stresses that seed treatments provide targeted protection in a controlled application, demonstrating both good environmental practice and cost-effective disease control. These are particularly important considerations for the business, not least in its capacity as a LEAF demonstration farm.

"If we could use seed treatments for everything we would," he pointed out," but in reality it's not possible. So foliar sprays will continue to be an essential component of our agronomic strategy. But, we choose seed over foliar treatment whenever possible because it saves an operation and is environmentally preferable.

"Before take-all seed treatments came along we had to rely on delayed drilling and our rotation to control this damaging disease. We continue to use early-applied nitrogen to assist second wheat rooting and continue to evaluate the performance of Amistar (azoxystrobin) as part of our take-all management strategy."

JSR routinely apply Latitude seed dressing with Beret Gold to all second wheat varieties. All early-drilled first wheat's are treated with Sibutol Secur alone, to minimise the risk of aphid transmitted BYDV (barley yellow dwarf virus) as well as ease of management at a particularly busy time.

The second wheat receives a two-spray foliar fungicide programme at T1 (GS32) and T2 (GS39). Combined with careful attention to nitrogen fertilisation this gives them the best possible opportunity to deliver the yields and quality sought.

"We have evaluated alternative take-all seed treatments," noted Philip Huxtable. "But our preferred choice remains with Latitude. We have to accept that no treatment will give 100% protection.

"It is important to appreciate that we may still get patches of whiteheads in our crops approaching harvest," he added. "Mainly because they are also symptomatic of other stem and root based infections, like eyespot, sharp eyespot and fusarium, careful examination is required to diagnose the correct infection."