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December 4, 2020
OSR update from the Bartonfields iFarm
Richard Derbyshire, December 2020
Here we have 3 randomly selected plants from the strip of Extremus winter oilseed rape at the Bartonfields iFarm.
The first photo is of a crop that was untreated with autumn nutrition and the second is a crop that had 30kg N/ha Sulphur Gold at drilling. Fertilisers were applied via pneumatic spreader to avoid overlap issues.
The increase in leaf area and visible difference in root sizes is easy to see, and when weighed the root mass from Sulpur Gold produced twice the weight of the untreated.
Even taking into the account that these are a small number of plants taken from unreplicated trials, I think it confirms that early nutrition is vital to get the crop through the susceptible early growth stage as soon as possible, to ward off flea beetle attack and make sure it is well established for winter.
Untreated with nutrition in the Autumn
Sulphur gold at 30kg N/ha at early emergence