Photo report Roughage Tour - Week 23
This is how the maize and fodder beet grow
There is no doubt that the start of the growing season is completely different than usual for maize. This photo series shows how the maize and fodder beets are doing at the Boerenbusiness Roughage tour participants.
The plant took a long time to emerge and is now overgrown by weeds in some places. Furthermore, the cold has played a major role in the growth retardation of the maize plant and this should recover quickly in the coming weeks.
With the warm weather, the weeds only grow just as fast and where the plant is just emerging, spraying is not yet an option. ''Let the warm weather do its job and as soon as the plant is big enough (2 to 3 leaf stage), you can spray. It is already very successful in many places, according to Ludwig Oevermans, roughage specialist in the Northern Netherlands at Limagrain. The first photo of the photo report clearly shows that the maize of dairy farmer Frank Rooker has been sprayed and the effect becomes visible.
The average growth trend of the 2021 Roughage Tour maize plant is around 20 centimetres. Last year in the same week this was an average of 10 centimeters higher.
Erik van der Deure
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