Early spring spraying… what does that look like for you?
Are your priorities the same as other growers? Do you include a variety of products in your tank mix?
Do you apply a T0 fungicide?
And how does early spring spraying vary across the country?
We wanted to know the answers, so we asked you.
The results are in.
It’s hardly surprising, but 52% of you said applying nitrogen was a key work priority in early spring.
The second priority was drilling spring crops - again, unsurprising for growers keen to get their crops into the ground.
Beyond that priorities were mixed almost equally across:
No clear stand out priority here (with variations across regions and key crops) just shows how much growers have on their to-do list in early spring.
For all our respondents, a spring spraying tank mix is likely to contain at least two products.
Over 20% said they typically mix 4.
This reinforces the importance of compatibility at this time of year, when the to-do list is long, the weather is difficult and time is short.
That compatibility is why the majority wouldn’t add more products to the tank mix, along with worries about crop scorch.
Over three quarters of growers said they apply a T0 fungicide.
And the majority are focused on rust control.
Tom Wheelhouse, technical specialist at UPL, suggests that as strobilurins and older azoles like tebuconazole have little effect on septoria, it appears rust control is the main focus for T0.
“It is a big change since the days of chlorothalonil when most fungicide programmes began with a T0 multisite application for septoria control.”
Would you agree?
Given year after year of spring weather challenges, it’s little wonder this is a big challenge when applying T0.
Correctly timing the application and finding time itself are also challenges here.
But…
Almost 80% of growers said they could improve early spring disease control with a T0 fungicide application if their chosen fungicide had greater tank mix compatibility and more flexibility with timing.
Tom suggests looking more closely at plant health elicitors like IODUS (laminarin).
Learn more: What is a plant health elicitor?
“Once applied, the laminarin in Iodus moves through the plant, stimulating its defences. The mode of action means there is a lot more flexibility in when it is applied, because it doesn’t necessarily need to go on leaf four like a conventional T0 fungicide.”
With no known tank mix compatibility issues and a host of other benefits, IODUS is well suited to early spring spraying, when there's so much to do and so little time to do it!
But what do YOU think about early spring spraying?
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