It’s increased in severity over the last two to three seasons.
Barley on barley results in a high risk of leaf spot and burning stubble only partly reduces the spores on the stubble.
So avoid two barley crops in a row to reduce the risk and severity.
One unwatered irrigated layout planet crop was sown into burnt barley stubble and yielded 2.9 tones per hectare without a post sowing fungicide.
Planet is more susceptible than Latrobe. Some paddocks had the spot blotch during tillering.
Treatment was with Prosaro® or Tilt ® or Stingray ® and feedback was that Prosaro was better.
You can mix them with herbicides. One farmer used the relatively expensive seed treatment Systiva® cost $15 to $22/ha depending on sowing rate.
It works well as a preventative but is an upfront cost. He said he would change to a crop spray this season.
The average dryland sowing rate was 64kg/ha with no yield trend. The two planet crops were sown at 75 and 85kg/ha on April 28 and May 1 and tillered well.
The two spring watered planet crops were sown at 60 and 75k/ha for 6.1 and 4.1t/ha hectare ( later sown May 20).
The 6.1 tones per hectare crop had high biomass and high 600heads/m2. The five unwatered irrigated Planet crops were sown between 40-85kg/ha for similar yields.
If you are planning sowing Planet early in late April/ early May and there is May establishment group feedback was to lower the Planet sowing rate to 40-60kg/ha.
We were surprised by the Oaklands dryland NVT results with the small yield difference between planet and latrobe.
In 2017 planet yielded 4.9t/ha and latrobe 4.7t/ha and both yielded 3.6t/ha in 2019.
Spartacus CL yielded 5t/ha in 2017 and 3.5t/ha in 2019. Many farmers at the meeting said they like Spartacus CL.
Barley flowers about 10 days before wheat and has better frost tolerance but has less acid soil tolerance.
● John Lacy is an independent agriculture consultant based in Finley.
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