Since 2013 NIAB TAG members have provided us with information about winter oilseed rape (WOSR) crops across the UK, especially damage from Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle (CSFB), which has fed into the NIAB TAG Agronomy Strategy documents and other publications and advice. For the first time last year we linked this to monitoring of the Flea Beetle invasion.
This year, the Survey is open to all WOSR growers and agronomists across the UK - members and non-members - in a NIAB collaboration with ADAS, Rothamsted Research and Harper Adams University, funded by Defra and AHDB. This new three-year cross-industry consortium gives us a unique opportunity to make rapid progress in our understanding of CSFB and develop robust tools to help WOSR decision-making for the future.
NIAB TAG’s Crowd Sourced Farmer Assessment is open from now until the end of October 2020, for one month only.
Again, NIAB TAG is collecting information on how crops are responding to this year’s establishment conditions and CSFB. And this year, for the first time, we are asking you to upload photos of current ground-cover similar to the images here.
An interim report will be produced in January to summarise the data by crop type, region, and establishment techniques and sent out to all those who have taken part.
Take the online survey, which includes clear instructions on uploading images, alongside questions on farm type, and OSR establishment this year. We are as interested in failures as successes. There is more information on the project and how to become involved in hosting and designing on-farm trials and monitoring in the Survey and we are also interested in growers and agronomists that will work with us in the spring to find out how the crops have fared into stem extension.
For further information contact Colin Peters or Aoife O'Driscoll and thank-you for your help and participation