ÄDELHOLM 2023: POST-TI & TII PREP
2023-05-02. sow +25 days, 141 degree-days_base3, 19.4mm rainfall.
DEVELOPMENT
The modal stage of development is probably BBCH11 – first pair of leaves visible but not unfolded. The cold has slowed things down. My plant count came in at 226, 4.52 per meter, 94 167 plants/ ha. BUT…
…now that it is very easy to see the plants, the issue with the failed sow house is very evident. It is clear that sow house 15 (looked at from behind the machine, or 4 if looked at from the front) failed early. The eastern headland, and about 75 m of the first pass were sowed. Otherwise, we can basically say that the plant count needs to be multiplied by 17 / 18 (94.44%). So, a revised plant count is 88 935 / ha. If anything, this is a relief – given the whole field is a research site around soil sampling, we want agronomic management to be applied evenly over the whole field. This is more or less the case here.
In comparison to the neighbour to the west, Ädelholm is a week ahead. In comparison to the neighbour to the south, Ädelholm is three weeks ahead (looks like it was sown today, with a FarmDroid). In comparison to the fields closer to Malmö I’m monitoring (sown 9 April), same but less even.
Moisture was at about 5cm.
Apparently it doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen: a three-leaf sugar beet. Actually, two. One on Ädelholm and one in a field closer to Malmö.
DAMAGE
There isn’t a lot of insect damage to report. Couldn’t find any trips. Suck marks on the cotyledons of 3 of the 25 plants inspected (3rd and 4th photo below). Walking around the entire field, there were some plants that have lost their cotyledons and maybe true leaves too. In the south-west corner of the field, a lot of plants looked like the one in the first photo below, with the cotyledons looking very stunted. This was probably something larger: birds, maybe. The twisted plant in the second photo below – I’m not sure what happened (stuck under some soil?), but is looks like it’ll survive.
WEED CONTROL TI EFFICACY AND PREP FOR TII
It looked pretty good to me on 2 May. There are weeds, but it looks mostly like new growth: none of the black-bindweed (aka Fallopia convolvulus, eller åkerbinda) had well developed true leaves, suggesting to me that most of them were underground at TI. In comparison to the aforementioned field closer to Malmö, with an even stand, the weed pressure is very low. The photos below show rather extreme cases of the weed pressure. If I was a gambling man, I would still think TII will probably be later this week, if for no other reason than it is now 8 days since TI. There is also a lot of wind in the forecast for Friday and the weekend.
TII
On a field visit with all of Agricenter plus our own NBR weed expert, on 3 May, it became clear I wasn’t looking hard enough. There is a little of everything out there, and the effect of TI looks underwhelming. Oilseed rape, black-bindweed, scentless mayweed/wild chamomile (tripleurospermum inodorum eller baldersbrå). TII has been booked in for either tonight or tomorrow morning, while the wind is still. The recipe this time:
- 0.1 Tramat
- 20 g Safari
- 1.25 Goltix
- 1.75 Betanal
- 0.5 Tanaris
- Olja
Some full doses there, so will be interesting to see how the beets hold up too.
UPDATE (2023-05-04): TII was sprayed ca. 19:00, 2023-05-03
