After a longer break, in mid-June, we returned to a new lease on Józef Ustrzycki’s farm, where at the end of April we looked at RGT Bilanz winter wheat sown after corn monoculture. What does the plantation look like now? What difficulties did the farmer have to face?
Józef Ustrzycki runs a farm specializing in plant production. In the past, he was also involved in animal production, the direction of which has changed over the years, but for three years, after finishing fattening pigs in an open cycle, he has been focusing exclusively on growing plants. It farms hilly terrain and mosaic soils belonging to valuation classes from IIIb to VI, with IVa predominating. The sowing structure includes winter rapeseed, winter wheat and winter triticale. Part of the area is cultivated without plowing.
A reminder of the state of the plantation at the end of April
The last time we met in this field was at the end of April. As Józef Ustrzycki emphasized at the time, the new lease was agreed very late, so he sowed wheat only on November 12, and due to prolonged sunrises and frosts without snow cover, he had serious concerns about the future of the plantation.
Due to the wet spring, fertilization and plant protection treatments were also delayed. The first dose of nitrogen was administered only at the end of March, and due to low temperature and strong wind during the previous visit, no plant protection treatments had been performed yet. This was noticeable in the form of widespread occurrence of powdery mildew and broadleaf weeds.
Fertilization and protection of winter wheat
As for fertilization, apart from the wetlands, where we managed to enter only at the end of April, all fertilization, both in broadcast and foliar form, was carried out before our previous visit to the field. Since then, a lot has happened in the field of plant protection, and Józef Ustrzycki encountered new problems on the new lease.
Pinoxaden, florasulam and metsulfuron-methyl were used against weeds at the end of April. With one exception, described below, the effectiveness of the treatment is unquestionable. As for fungicides, in the T1 treatment, tebuconazole was used at a dose of 150 g/ha, fenpropidin at a dose of 300 g/ha and metrafenone at a dose of 60 g/ha. In turn, 3 weeks later, as part of the T2 treatment, the farmer applied azoxystrobin at a dose of 200 g/ha, prothioconazole at a dose of 100 g/ha and fluxapyroxad at a dose of 25 g/ha. A deltamethrin treatment was also performed.
– There are mosaic-like soils in my fields and this is clearly visible in the plants. Where there is better soil, the wheat is nice to look at, there are large ears and wide flag leaves, although it seems to me that if it had grown earlier, in November or early December, and not even in January in some places, these differences would they wouldn’t be as visible. To my surprise, even in the wetlands, where nitrogen was introduced only at the end of April, the wheat caught up nicely. I have two new challenges on my new lease. For the first time since I remember, I had a problem with horsewort in wheat, so I treated it with deltamethrin, and at the same time no herbicide eliminated an unusual weed, Jerusalem artichoke, coming from the neighbor. The Bilanz variety after corn was sown on November 12, and in another place I also have the Poezja variety from September 28-29 and at the moment there are no major differences between them – says Józef Ustrzycki.
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