While a fair proportion of winter crops in his area are planted early – before the weather deteriorates, which seems to get sooner and sooner, Lancashire-based Graham Singleton also foresees challenges with planting winter wheat after this season’s late maize.

“Rather than force late wheat in, see if soils can be improved by planting a cover crop with minimal cultivation as soon as the forager leaves the field. Then, look at what spring options you have,” he suggests. “We’ve had some unbelievable spring barley yields in this area of 8.16 t/ha (3.25 t/acre) of late due to weather conditions and seasons changing. That said, don’t put all your eggs in one basket; you want a bit of everything. If you go to all spring cropping and we have a dry spring, you might end up with a lot of very average crops.”

Another increasing challenge in the area is blackgrass. To hit the problem hard when first spotted, Graham advises shallow cultivations to keep blackgrass seed near the surface and killing it in stale seedbeds at least twice before planting a new crop. “After 4-5 five years, consider re-setting by ploughing down and leaving for another 4-5 years, returning to shallow cultivation methods and stale seed beds where needed.

“Conditions are usually too wet for more than one autumn in-crop herbicide application, so the first pre-em needs to be robust. Growers also use rogueing when blackgrass is first spotted on farm to help stop seed returning. Most blackgrass in the North West is herbicide resistant as it comes from manures where straw used for bedding has been brought in from other counties where blackgrass is an issue.”