Take Particular Care in Making the Most of 2008 Cereal Opportunities

UK wheat growers have been urged to put the experience of the recent lean cereal price years to the best possible use in taking advantage of the current very much healthier market in the coming season’s cropping.

“Soaring cereal prices are all very well but the past season, in particular, has brought home to everyone the need to do everything possible to build the greatest consistency into their production regimes,” stresses Masstock business development manager, David Neale.

“We need to be producing cereals at £120/tonne or more with the disciplines we’ve employed in surviving £60/tonne and less,” he suggests. “This really will allow us to make the most of the opportunities now available while building enterprises better able to survive the vagaries of the weather as well as world commodity markets.

“We need to use the next few years to lock-in the efficiency gains we’ve made and the lessons we’ve learnt over the past few if we really want to put ourselves in the pound seats.”

With cereal prices at a record high and the prospect of zero set aside for 2008, David Neale anticipates a substantial increase in wheat plantings this autumn, with a particular resurgence in second wheats.

Under these circumstances, he is especially concerned about the effects of the very high levels of take-all recorded over the past summer and soil damage from the difficult harvest on 2008 cereals performance if growers are not very careful indeed.

“Our SMART Farm experience shows 10t/ha can consistently be produced in commercial practice from second wheats, even on light land with a history of take-all,” he points out. “But only if they are managed as the distinctly different crops they are from first wheats.

“Thankfully, we now have a number of opportunities to aid second cereal performance that simply weren’t available until recently. These include Recommended List second wheat performance ratings, specialist take-all seed treatment, major gene varietal eyespot resistance and a far greater understanding of specific second wheat agronomy.

“While the RL shows Robigus incurs a penalty of over 1.5 t/ha when grown as a second wheat, there are many varieties on the current list with average second wheat yields within a tonne of their first wheat performance,” he notes. “And the best performer of all – new Group 2, Battalion – only shows a 0.56 t/ha penalty.

“So it has to make sense to pick varieties with high second wheat rather than merely overall RL ratings. As well as Battalion, among the current UK-wide Recommended varieties Ambrosia, Glasgow, Humber, Einstein, Gladiator, Istabraq and Oakley all rate highly in the slot.

“Six years of independent trials also show it makes sense to use the specialist take-all seed treatment, Latitude (silthiofam) as a routine in all cases where take-all is a risk,” adds David Neale. “Even in years like 2006 when take-all wasn’t very evident, the yield response has given a worthwhile financial benefit. Despite very much lower wheat prices, indeed, the margin over treatment recorded has been more than £24/ha in five of the past six seasons.

“The fact that take-all treatment allows earlier drilling, of course, means better establishment at lower seed rates which should go a long way towards offsetting the cost of treatment as well as improving canopy management.”

David Neale also points to the increasing availability of strong eyespot resistance, noiting that two of the currently Recommended varieties and a number of those coming forward for recommendation now carry the Pch1gene. He sees these offering a valuable extra weapon to combat this additional second wheat disease threat.

Finally, he stresses that SMART Farm studies have revealed a huge amount in recent years about how best to fine-tune key aspects of second wheat agronomy like seed rates, spring fertilisation and fungicide and PGR regimes to ensure the lowest unit cost of production.

“Over the coming season, we will be harnessing this expertise to provide growers across the country with the best possible advice on managing increasing levels of cereals,” David Neale promises.

“As well as putting considerable effort into helping people improve their second wheat agronomy we’ll also be focussing our attention on improving first wheat as well as barley and oat growing alongside our established Best of British Oilseeds Initiative. After all, it’s making the most of the whole combinable crop rotation that really matters.”