Early start to harvest anticipated

Given the long periods of dry weather which have been prevalent this season, some growers are questioning the need to desiccate crops of OSR.

But since dry weather affected the performance of some herbicides this spring, Mrs Sheppard says a desiccant may be required in crops affected by grass-weeds.

She says: “If the dry weather continues, growers are less likely to be using glyphosate to kill off the straw. However, there are a lot of grass-weeds about so, in some situations, a pre-harvest desiccation may be required to control problematic grass-weeds.”

Agrovista technical manager Chris Martin advises using desiccants such as glyphosate as a harvest aid. “In my experience, desiccating with glyphosate only brings harvest forward a couple of days, but generally makes harvesting easier with less admixture – to me it is an insurance policy and harvest aid more than anything else.”

However, Hampshire farmer Ian Milburn is planning on allowing most of his OSR to ripen naturally. “With crops drying out much quicker than normal, I am taking the opportunity to reduce my herbicide usage and allow the crop to ripen naturally.

“I expect I will still be harvesting both my barley and oilseed rape earlier than last year because they are at least one week ahead, so I can afford to leave crops a few more days to ripen.

“However, there are a couple of fields where I have not managed to control grass-weeds coming in from the field boundaries, so I will be spraying off a couple of headlands over the coming days.”