Arable crops

Firstly, happy New Year, let’s hope 2025 is a success! Hopefully it is not that long until crops start to regrow as we move towards spring – a critical time for winter crops. After lying dormant, they enter that period of rapid growth where a lot of important processes occur, we need to make sure that they are set up correctly for that period.

Early spring growth period in cereal crops is an essential phase during which the foundation for high biomass is established. Biomass is a fundamental prerequisite to achieving high grain yields, this biomass is the result of achieving a good population of main shoots and tillers. The tillering phase commences after leaf 3 is fully expanded and generally finishes when the ‘double-ridge’ stage of development is reached (i.e. just before GS 30.) This growth stage is typically reached by mid-March. The final number of tillers can therefore be manipulated through the appropriate use of inputs, such as nutrition (namely nitrogen).

When trying to judge how much nitrogen to apply at the first timing there are some factors to take into account – when was the crop drilled, plant populations, forecast weather and how much nitrogen you think the crop has taken up overwinter (mineralisation)?

More often than not it has been the right decision to go on with relatively high rates of 70-100kgN/ha in the form of an NS compound such as YaraBela Axan. However, there are some tools out there that can help with this decision on what rate to go with. Within Yara’s Atfarm app there is a photo analysis tool that enables you to take some pictures of your crop (cereals and oilseed) at this timing to give you an estimated N-uptake value. This can take the guesswork out of how much mineralisation there has been and what has made it into crops. This means we can adjust the rate of nitrogen accordingly, potentially increasing nitrogen use efficiency. When we use tools for subsequent applications, such as the N-Tester, we can really start to make the most of our investment in fertiliser.