Anyone bothering with sclerotinia sprays?

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Would you have the same analogy for wheat and barley
No. The reason being that we can see something that needs spraying for.
For example I sprayed our T1 on Wheat today. The Skyscraper has definitely got Septoria damage.
The Rape on the other hand is clean as a whistle. Sclerotinia was only a problem in 2008. Never seen it since.
A typical example of a disease that the chem companies scare us to death about and will rarely ever be so again. Just like Orange blossom midge.

There are of course other reasons for wanting to spray wheat and barley other than fungicides. PGRs and Manganese for instance. So it would be prudent to add some fungicide. This was the case with my Dunston wheat that also got sprayed with a T1 today, but at a much lower rate of fungicide.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
This thread has pee'd me off. You shouldn’t be allowed to call yourself a farmer if you have no knowledge of what you are applying and are just slinging ‘a bit’ of everything thing on that a chemical salesman has told you to.
Those of you on serviced deals, do you actually benchmark it against people doing it other ways?
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Did these costs include the cost of walking the crop and the price of advice?
Did they include the cost of being a member of independent trialist like NIAB, or the cost of keeping qualifications and knowledge up to date.
I bet they didn't include the Opportunity Cost of undertaking other work instead of farmers walking their own crops, deciding applications, checking compatibility and chasing prices and suppliers.

We are a happy serviced agronomy customer. All applications are explained and nothing arrives that isn't expected.
Chem prices are of course higher. I simply don't have time to do it any other way and probably wouldn't be cost effective either.

It's great really. If i wanna play agronomist, I can have a walk with him and walk myself. If I haven't got time I know I have somebody that'll deal with it .

TFF is also good to make sure he is on the straight and narrow(y)
But this is the point, combineable crop agronomy is not particularly hard or time consuming. You are trying to justify all he extra money you are spending when it’s just not needed. Have a look at other options?
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
This thread has pee'd me off. You shouldn’t be allowed to call yourself a farmer if you have no knowledge of what you are applying and are just slinging ‘a bit’ of everything thing on that a chemical salesman has told you to.
Those of you on serviced deals, do you actually benchmark it against people doing it other ways?
To be fair to @Bobthebuilder he said he was the sprayer operator, if he is employed to apply spray recommendations it is unfair for us to get upset with him for diligently doing his job he is employed to do.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
To be fair to @Bobthebuilder he said he was the sprayer operator, if he is employed to apply spray recommendations it is unfair for us to get upset with him for diligently doing his job he is employed to do.
Yes he did I was not getting at him.
It was more of general point that some farmers have such a lack of knowledge I find it highly questionable that they should be allowed the responsibility of buying pesticides especially if they are getting taken advantage of by chemical salesmen due to lack of knowledge. We have environment, resistance, public perception, crop safety, human safety etc to think about and it does is all no favours.
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
Yes he did I was not getting at him.
It was more of general point that some farmers have such a lack of knowledge I find it highly questionable that they should be allowed the responsibility of buying pesticides especially if they are getting taken advantage of by chemical salesmen due to lack of knowledge. We have environment, resistance, public perception, crop safety, human safety etc to think about and it does is all no favours.
To be fair to the agronomist he hasn’t looked at crop or written a recommendation yet. We don’t actually know if an insecticide will be recommended.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
To be fair to the agronomist he hasn’t looked at crop or written a recommendation yet. We don’t actually know if an insecticide will be recommended.
This is a bigger issue than sclerotinia sprays. It’s an environmental, public perception and farming economic one.
 

Bobthebuilder

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
northumberland
To be fair to @Bobthebuilder he said he was the sprayer operator, if he is employed to apply spray recommendations it is unfair for us to get upset with him for diligently doing his job he is employed to do.
exactly :rolleyes: no where have i said i'm a qualified agronomist, nor do i pay his bills, if i'm given a job sheet and a pile of chemicals i will put them on, i just commented that there was a LOT of beetles on our rape when we looked at the field for a different reason (not even spray related) and said is there a point where they do more harm than good:unsure: and the agronomist will be looking at the fields next week, he does a good job and doesn't push too much product if it's not needed
 

Chalky

Member
As Brisel said-almost 100%brisk of septoria in wheat, and that will always on average be the biggest yield robber £££ nationally. lots of other diseases require a more specific set of circumstances to go from trace, to troubling, to epidemic. Sclerotinia is very much one of those-but I believe the pollen beetle issue can be real, more often than not though a few warm days brings the yellow hue onto rape, and beetles happy to go to open flowers, of which there are plenty. Cold, stalling spell over last couple of weeks stopped some rape crops'not quite there' and left them a little vulnerable. many were past risk. I have seen bad sclerotinia in Northumberland. not a wet flowering, but a damp flowering(worse as petals stick, rather than being washed to ground)-knocked 1-1.5t/ha off I would say. So the choice and interpretation of circumstances prevailing is regional and yours.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
Doesn’t this serviced agronomy drum beating get a bit boring. Like everything there will good ones and bad ones of serviced and independent. It is time farmers took more responsibility upon themselves to question their actions. I know some service guys (small company) who give some great advice
No, it's never boring!!

Benchmarking is great, the serviced farms in my group all stood out for big spends on trace elements, adjuvants and insecticides for no extra margin or yield, it's difficult to justify all the reasoning that goes with serviced agronomy when the bare bones are laid in front of you like that..its simply a conflict of interest to put agronomic advise and supply into one package imo.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
No, it's never boring!!

Benchmarking is great, the serviced farms in my group all stood out for big spends on trace elements, adjuvants and insecticides for no extra margin or yield, it's difficult to justify all the reasoning that goes with serviced agronomy when the bare bones are laid in front of you like that..its simply a conflict of interest to put agronomic advise and supply into one package imo.
Bang on. I don’t understand why some farmers argue that it’s a good thing. It is literally baffling.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
Bang on. I don’t understand why some farmers argue that it’s a good thing. It is literally baffling.
The only reason I can think of is that the same Farmers maybe indulge in S+M and pegging in their spare time, they clearly seek one-way dominating relationships where they get shafted :eek:
 

Northern territory

Member
Livestock Farmer
The only reason I can think of is that the same Farmers maybe indulge in S+M and pegging in their spare time, they clearly seek one-way dominating relationships where they get shafted :eek:
I never said it was, my point was it gets a bit tedious on here all the time. But that is just my opinion, I do my own crop walking and recommendations.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
This thread has pee'd me off. You shouldn’t be allowed to call yourself a farmer if you have no knowledge of what you are applying and are just slinging ‘a bit’ of everything thing on that a chemical salesman has told you to.
Those of you on serviced deals, do you actually benchmark it against people doing it other ways?

Just to play devil's advocate here, I'm going to stick up for the serviced sector here.

You have to submit accounts every year, so why aren't you a chartered accountant? How often are you signing legal documents? How about some basic legal training? You get the idea. My point is that not every grower has the interest or time in keeping up to date on all the agrochemical data, legislation etc available, so they choose to outsource a critical component to the success of the business to a professional who is dedicated to this specialist subject.

There's a middle ground here & IMO serviced growers ought to be checking up on their level of service. Those who never question the bills or at least have someone WITHOUT A VESTED INTEREST have a look occasionally will get little sympathy from me.

As I've said before, there some very good service agronomists out there who work hard for the customers/clients. It's a few bad ones who give the rest of the industry a bad name. I do have sympathy with those that have serviced agronomy who dare to put their head above the parapet only to be shot at by the illuminati of BASIS trained TFF members. Myself included.
 
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ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Just to play devil's advocate here, I'm going to stick up for the serviced sector here.

You have to submit accounts every year, so why aren't you a chartered accountant? How often are you signing legal documents? You get the idea. My point is that not every grower has the interest or time in keeping up to date on all the agrochemical data, legislation etc available, so they choose to outsource a critical component to the success of the business to a professional who is dedicated to this specialist subject.

There's a middle ground here & IMO serviced growers ought to be checking up on their level of service. Those who never question the bills or at least have someone WITHOUT A VESTED INTEREST have a look occasionally will get little sympathy from me.

As I've said before, there some very good service agronomists out there who work hard for the customers/clients. It's a few bad ones who give the rest of the industry a bad name. I do have sympathy with those that have serviced agronomy who dare to put their head above the parapet only to be shot at by the illuminati of BASIS trained TFF members. Myself included.
I get what you’re saying. My issue is the ones who are quite clearly fleecing people and over using pesticides. Nothing wrong if it’s done correctly and the farmer has an idea of what is being recommended. It’s a double whammy of some farmers not being switched on enough and some agronomists taking the pee. It looks bad on us all.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I get what you’re saying. My issue is the ones who are quite clearly fleecing people and over using pesticides. Nothing wrong if it’s done correctly and the farmer has an idea of what is being recommended. It’s a double whammy of some farmers not being switched on enough and some agronomists taking the pee. It looks bad on us all.

I think the decision will be taken from human hands soon so not sure it matters anymore

As an industry we have proven rather well we can’t be trusted to use these products responsibly so like naughty children we are going get loose access to all our toys !
 

jonnyjon

Member
IMO, unless your making the call on what you spray or don't spray yourself, you are never going to get off the hamsters wheel as any agronomist is going to try to cover their ass and recommed to put it on or risk being blamed if it goes wrong. Their whole training/ way of thinking is treating symptoms with chemicals and as long as that continues the problems we experience in modern farming will continue to get worse
 

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