Climate resilience on-farm action planner (cereals): Winter temperatures

Here are some of the impacts of changing winter temperatures and the actions you can take using our Climate resilience on-farm action planner for cereals and oilseeds.

Extreme cold events are expected to become rarer and less severe, with fewer air frost and ground frost days, higher minimum temperatures and fewer very cold days.

Warmer and wetter conditions over winter may lead to increased prevalence of native pest and disease, such as yellow and brown rust in wheat, net blotch in winter barley crops and clubroot in brassicas. There may be increased survival of disease vectors such as aphids.

• Monitor for disease symptoms in winter crops, e.g.BYDV
• Use of disease/pest forecasting tools to optimise spray programmes which may need to be adjusted

Reduced frosts may affect vernalisation and the productivity over the season.

• Use winter cereal and oilseed species or varieties with a lower vernalisation requirement

• Reduced frost damage
• The viability of oilseed rape could be at greater risk of cabbage stem flea beetle with climate change. Winter linseed is a potential alternative