davidroberts30
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
i havent.....but it is only sea on the prevailing side
How to stop using insecticides?
- Thread starter DieselRob
- Start date
- Location
- British Isles
Forestry helps on this place as in a bydv but causes other problems but never go to early but now planing to be drill up with the claydon by end of September wheat then barley.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
Between 150 and 450 ft
I used to believe that 300 plus was the advantage
but valleys do get frost when higher up is frost free
drilling date is also a big factor
- Location
- Minehead,Somerset
Well you would be very brave to not include an insecticide on September/ October drilled wheat and barley in West Somerset although later drilled you may get away with it .
As a spray contractor , I have the odd fields which have been tramlines but you end up sometimes with either wide tramlines or small triangles in short work without a tramline . I can tell from my screen and trace that I am missing bits and depending on size , sometimes leave them . It is always noticeable how poor these bits end up however if I continue the whole year " missing" them , it's basically no sprays whatsoever , not just insecticide.
I did a field two years ago with a two 24m tramline miss ( not enough product so customer said to leave, rather than stretch) and that was riddled with byvd patches in the spring. Convinced him that it was worth it .
Last year , farm changes hand around October and new owners want to be organic. They inherit some W barley/ wheat which has not been sprayed . Wow , come June you could walk through field and it was so thin and stunted you would not get wet legs even if crop was saturated with dew
Personally , I stopped treating spring beans against brucid beetles as I was unhappy spraying them with all the good guys around . Never got human grade due to holes but went for feed without issues.
As a spray contractor , I have the odd fields which have been tramlines but you end up sometimes with either wide tramlines or small triangles in short work without a tramline . I can tell from my screen and trace that I am missing bits and depending on size , sometimes leave them . It is always noticeable how poor these bits end up however if I continue the whole year " missing" them , it's basically no sprays whatsoever , not just insecticide.
I did a field two years ago with a two 24m tramline miss ( not enough product so customer said to leave, rather than stretch) and that was riddled with byvd patches in the spring. Convinced him that it was worth it .
Last year , farm changes hand around October and new owners want to be organic. They inherit some W barley/ wheat which has not been sprayed . Wow , come June you could walk through field and it was so thin and stunted you would not get wet legs even if crop was saturated with dew
Personally , I stopped treating spring beans against brucid beetles as I was unhappy spraying them with all the good guys around . Never got human grade due to holes but went for feed without issues.
ZXR17
Member
- Location
- South Dorset
My wheat got absolutely hammered in 2012/13 I think was the year , approximately 30% loss.
I took some drone shots which clearly showed it spreading across the fields from the sheltered areas.
I'm sure I posted them on one of the previous " You don't need to spray against BYDV threads " . I can't seem to find them now but if I do I'll re post them.
When you live in an area where night time temperatures have averaged up to 10 degrees up until Christmas in the past it's hard to sit back and expect nature to protect your crop.
Once bitten and all that.
ollie989898
Member
It's a nonsense to suggest a field of wheat or barley is any better or worse for the environment irrespective of whether you use herbicides or not: it's a fudging monoculture. 
- Location
- Foothills of the Quantocks
Zero insecticide here, I've got some BYDV in one 3ha field of Theodore, drilled early October at about 500 seeds.
Everything else is fine, drilled a couple of days later, maybe the aphids were attracted to the lush growth? There were occasional aphids all over my whole acreage but no symptoms. I was actually debating whether to use flipper or some other soap product this year as I was getting a bit nervous.
The worst BYDV I've ever had was after a sunflower cover crop which had some spring barley in the bottom. The crop was so big I couldn't see to drive the sprayer through (no autosteer on that machine at the time), so I just drilled it. Then the pre-em became peri-em due to the weather, so no glyphosate there either. Direct transfer of aphids from the barley to the new crop guaranteed infection and the field yielded about 6t.
But on the whole I seem to get away with it. And on a sunny evening you can see the stubbles woven with cobwebs and you think they must be catching aphids. Likewise if I dig up a trowel of earth, it's usually crawling with centipedes and ground beetles. Not forgetting this year a literal cloud of insects hovering over my rye for a couple of weeks. (they loved the sudangrass residue)
I know it's a monoculture but it doesn't need to be a sterile monoculture!
Everything else is fine, drilled a couple of days later, maybe the aphids were attracted to the lush growth? There were occasional aphids all over my whole acreage but no symptoms. I was actually debating whether to use flipper or some other soap product this year as I was getting a bit nervous.
The worst BYDV I've ever had was after a sunflower cover crop which had some spring barley in the bottom. The crop was so big I couldn't see to drive the sprayer through (no autosteer on that machine at the time), so I just drilled it. Then the pre-em became peri-em due to the weather, so no glyphosate there either. Direct transfer of aphids from the barley to the new crop guaranteed infection and the field yielded about 6t.
But on the whole I seem to get away with it. And on a sunny evening you can see the stubbles woven with cobwebs and you think they must be catching aphids. Likewise if I dig up a trowel of earth, it's usually crawling with centipedes and ground beetles. Not forgetting this year a literal cloud of insects hovering over my rye for a couple of weeks. (they loved the sudangrass residue)
I know it's a monoculture but it doesn't need to be a sterile monoculture!
- Location
- CW5 Cheshire
I've not used insecticides since 2012 and have only ever seen a few small patches of BYDV, not enough to be bothered about. The farm is all No Till and like to think this is why I don't get a problem, I've no idea how someone using tillage would get on without insecticide in this locality (Cheshire - Shropshire border).
Much of the land here is slow draining, so needs drilling early in the autumn or risk crop failure/poor crop establishment. Last autumn I started drilling wheat on the 12th Sept and was finished by the 19th, too early in hind sight with the following mild weather, however I've not seen any BYDV yet though.
There were serious problems around here in Autumn 2011, even fields sprayed with insecticide had BYDV issues. I had part of the farm deter treated and part insecticide free that year, I saw no difference, so was happy to stop altogether.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Agronomists here typically recommend autumn insecticide as we are close to woods which are essentially 2000 acres of rewilded area. They say that there are a huge reserve of virus infected aphids coming off that forestry land.
I don’t know what to make of this as we are often told that wild areas boost predator numbers which you’d think would control aphids. I generally strongly resist insecticide applications as I simply hate the damn things but who is right? I’ve refused point blank to used those recommended in the spring but for autumn I’ve used them as recommended. We are mid lincs.
I don’t know what to make of this as we are often told that wild areas boost predator numbers which you’d think would control aphids. I generally strongly resist insecticide applications as I simply hate the damn things but who is right? I’ve refused point blank to used those recommended in the spring but for autumn I’ve used them as recommended. We are mid lincs.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
there are two main ways bydv gets into a crop by aphids
walking from the previous crop onto the new crop
ploughing grass or volunteers in then drilling close behind or no plough leaving volunteers
these aphids are in the crop from day 1 this used to be a big problem with early drilled crops after grass or barley after wheat
the worst cases wall to wall bydv
this cannot happen when the previous crop is clean stubble non grass non cereal crop any aphids in non cereal crops are the wrong species
the other is flying in once the crop is growing much later infection so often shows as circles when sprayed in november
or are controlled by a high level of preditors and winter weather
walking from the previous crop onto the new crop
ploughing grass or volunteers in then drilling close behind or no plough leaving volunteers
these aphids are in the crop from day 1 this used to be a big problem with early drilled crops after grass or barley after wheat
the worst cases wall to wall bydv
this cannot happen when the previous crop is clean stubble non grass non cereal crop any aphids in non cereal crops are the wrong species
the other is flying in once the crop is growing much later infection so often shows as circles when sprayed in november
or are controlled by a high level of preditors and winter weather
CORK
Member
- Location
- East Cork, Ireland
Like many things, location - location - location...
We are based on the south coast of Ireland so even in an Irish context, we have generally very high BYDV pressure.
A frost here is a talking point as in many winters we might only receive one or two nights frost. This, combined with lots of hedges and grassland means that aphids can be plentiful and are rarely killed by cold.
I have often seen BYDV controlled by aphicides in the autumn only to see a mild week occur in January where aphids take flight and infect winter cereals.
The autumn/spring of 2021/22 was a case in point;
Many crops were sprayed in autumn but were infected in January. Those that did spray in November had some infection (wheat and barley) but those that did not spray lost a lot. This happened in a lot of the country, even away from the milder south.
This autumn has been different, we had a terribly wet autumn which wasn't suitable for spraying or for aphids. They are a very light little fly and so can't travel much in bad weather. There is very little BYDV evident in crops that weren't sprayed.
I will always spray a winter or spring cereal if conditions allow as the risk is too large to ignore. If the weather just stays too bad and I cannot get out then the BYDV risk will be lower anyway.
I don't put much faith in "beneficial insects". If they were that effective, BYDV wouldn't be an issue. Ladybirds will predate on aphids and their numbers will respond to aphid numbers in a crop. However, they are usually too late to the party with the damage occuring before Ladybird numbers are adequate.
I think the whole organic, regen topic is being overdone. Good farmers who care about the soil and nature will farm with sympathy for their land. They don't need to be organic or non plough to do this.