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Pests, Weeds & Diseases - Home Page.

 

Much talk is often made of problems faced by farmers from:

• Diseases

• Pests.

• Weather.

• Weeds.

these are very real problems but not often seen. This is for various reasons:

• Farmers are very good at controlling many pf these problems so they are often stopped before they become a problem - but not without incurring extra costs.

• Farmers are not very keen to show their crops or animals which have been infected.

We provide some examples of each of these, which we will build up as we can - of course if you are a farmer and can give us chance to film some as examples that would be great! For the moment they are all on this one page - but as we build up our resources base we will split into different categories.

Pests.

Pests are living organisms that occur where they are not wanted or that cause damage to crops or humans or other animals.

Diseases.

So far we have only got examples of crop diseases. Crop diseases usually classified as those diseases caused mainly by fungi, but also some by viruses. Diseases cause by other organisms are usually referred to as pest attach.

Fungi can attach all parts of a plant. The can damage the leaves reducing the plants ability to photosynthesis and make the parts a farmer harvests so reducing yield and our food. Fungi can also directly affect the roots, tubers, fruits or seeds, making them un-useable or just unsightly - we have become used to blemish free produce, which can only be achieved by control these diseases.

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-52 which killed 3/4 - 1.5 million people (estimates vary). It was cause by Potato Blight which caused the Irish people staple diet potatoes to rot in the ground leaving them with no food. Farmers now spray their crops to stop blight - if the summer is warm and moist and ideal for the spread of potato blight spores then this must be done every 7-10 days.

Weeds.

Weeds are described as any plant growing where it is not wanted. The reasons farmers don't like poppies or other pretty flowers growing in their crops are that it can make the crop difficult to harvest and it can contaminate the harvested crop with seeds making the harvested crop worth less or even no money.

Weeds are not just wild flowers, but include grass or even the wrong crop growing in another crop such as wheat in barley. This causes a particular problem as the barley will be ready to harvest but the wheat grain will still be soft and moist. Even though the wheat will be harvested with the barley inadvertently it will add moisture to the barley meaning it will need to be dried before sale. It may also mean that if the barley is intended for use a malt then it will be rejected as barley with wheat in will not produce malt!!

Weather

Not really a bug, weather can still make or break a farmers work. Bad weather at harvest can lead to lower yields or even the complete loss a crop after the farmer has looked after it all year and spent lots of money on it.

Bad weather can also effect animals too. Newly born lambs are very susceptible to cold wet weather and can lead to death.