I have seen trials work in Gloucestershire and the surrounding counties but I think I have now finished looking at the main variety and fungicide screens for this season.
A few key observations
There are few winter wheat varieties that look “any good” for the commercial farmer in the 21/22 year ahead.
The new chemistry available in 20/21 has performed poorly on Septoria and Yellow Rust.
Chemistry potentially available in 2022 does not look any better than that available in 20/21.
Now the caveats.
“Performed poorly.” Well not exactly. There have been “errors in judgement” regarding the application of the chemicals.
Epoxyconazole came to the market in 1993 and re-wrote disease control in the winter wheat crop.
The new materials are not as epoxyconazole was in 1993 and cannot be expected to perform the same so why use them in a similar manner?
Don’t cut the rate.
Don’t expect them to cure infection as Epoxyconazole did.
Don’t use the same application timings.
At the moment careful use of existing chemistry is going to outperform new chemistry where errors in judgement exist.
Photographs
First two: Commercial crops of winter wheat treated with existing chemistry
The rest
New chemistry applied at various calendar dates at various rates and the level of disease control achieved.
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