Crop desiccation is used as a pre-harvest herbicide and harvest aid on cereal crops including wheat and oats and on oil seed rape. As a systemic herbicide it is not a true desiccant as it can take weeks rather than days for the crop to die back after application. In the UK, it began to be applied to wheat crops in the 1980s to control perennial weeds such as common couch which was very effective and meant that sowing of the next crop could occur sooner. Use as a harvest aid in the UK increased after the introduction of strobilurin fungicides which
Cereal leaf beetle is when about 50% of the eggs have hatched. An alternative is spraying when the adults are laying their eggs, which is also shown to be effective. <br> Cereal leaf beetle The cereal leaf beetle ("Oulema melanopus") is a significant crop pest, described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. One generation of this beetle is produced a year. Adults feed before winter and spend most of their overwintering time in protected areas such as wind rows, crop stubble, and tree bark crevices. Adults mate once the temperature warms to above 9–10 degrees Celsius (or 44.6 degrees F) and females have a