ÄDELHOLM 2023: WEEK 26, INSECTS THEN RAIN

2023-06-27, sow +81 days, 806 degree-days_base3, 42.4 mm rainfall.

DEVELOPMENT

Canopy cover was measured from a drone flight yesterday (26th June) morning (ca. 7.30 am) as 84%. The BBRO BeetGRO model puts canopy cover at 95% from 950 degree-days and forward. So, maybe we’re not tracking that badly. The drone batteries had “leaked” a lot more than expected, so flight time had to be reduced and thus the images were captured at 45 m, which might impact the assessment. There was also an interesting break in the exposure of the image, which I can’t explain, but which might also impact the assessment.

INSECTS

In week 24 (ca. 12 June), the population of black aphids was insane. More than 50% of the plants had a colony on them (the economic threshold). It was probably closer to 80%. This assessment was basically done over the entire field as some 80 odd soil and leaf samples were taken from the field on that day as part of the NBR project 345 Soil Sampling. The crop was treated with Carnadine on Thursday 15 June, at 0.25 l/ha.

Returning on 26 June, it was interesting to see the impact of the treatment. There were a lot of mushy aphids on the plants, lots of signs of past colonisation, and lots of ladybugs. Even this beauty of a hoover fly lava.

RAIN

We’ve finally had some. The forecast was for around 25 mm in the afternoon / evening of the 26th. We got around 9 mm. We’ll take it! There is more forecast in the days ahead, so here’s hoping.