Establishment & Germination
- Check plant population and uniformity: Count plants and assess emergence. Uneven germination may indicate sowing or seed issues, pests, disease, or difficult soil zones.
- Monitor soil crusting or cloddy areas. These can inhibit emergence. We can plan to address and rectify these areas.
- Resow decisions: Act early if areas are low density or patchy — delaying reduces effectiveness and return on investment. Talk to your Agronomists about economic minimum plant numbers.
Revisit Input Plans
- Adjust plans based on reality and adapt your fertiliser, herbicide, or fungicide programs accordingly. Gear up or gear down based on the season.
- Budget and risk management: Act early. Yes or No. Not making a decision is often the worst decision to make. Delaying inputs can reduce effectiveness and returns.
- Talk to Crop Smart now to forecast and plan out your inputs required. Which products will be tight, and which ones may increase in price.
Pest and Disease Pressure
- Monitor for early pests: Watch for Redlegged Earth Mite (RLEM), Cutworms, Lucerne Flea, and False Wireworm in cereals, pulses, and canola. There have been reports of more Bryobia MMite this season due to the dryer start.
- Early fungicide requirements. Review the plans and have the first spray on hand to ensure you are proactive.
- Use thresholds: Don’t spray unnecessarily — base action on pest population, season, economic outcomes and crop stage.
Weed Control
- Early weed competition is critical: The first 2–6 weeks of crop life are the most sensitive to weed competition.
- Post-emergent herbicide timing: Apply at the right crop stage and with proper conditions (active weed growth, minimal stress). Refer to your Agronomist for early recommendations. Quite often this is a good way to save on input costs – controlling smaller weeds at potentially lower rates.
- Check product timing and rates. Some broadleaf herbicides are registered from the 2-leaf stage of the cereal crop.
Nutrition and Early Deficiency Monitoring
- Review soil test results or assess paddock history: Use this to decide on top-ups of nitrogen and sulphur. Zinc can be critical to early crop and root growth. To gain maximum value from Zinc you must apply it before the five-leaf stage of the crop.
- Tissue tests at 3–5 leaf stage: Confirm deficiencies in time for correction.
- Monitor for N deficiency: revisit Nitrogen budgets and yield expectations.
- In a shorter season, encouraging crop tillering with earlier N may be beneficial.
Record-Keeping & Monitoring
- Keep good paddock records: Spray timings, observations, weeds, pests, etc. This helps build better decisions year-to-year. It can also help you become more effective and efficient with your Agronomist.
- Satellite imaging: Early NDVI maps can help spot emergence issues or variability. Your local Crop Smart representative can help you access NDVI images.