Great Bend Tribune
Published August 2, 2015
Preparing for the 2016 Wheat Crop - Part I
The year in the title isn’t a typo. Even though it is only August 2nd, good producers are making their decisions for the 2016 wheat crop. Even though planting is more than a month away, many producers are already facing potential challenges, especially for those planning to plant wheat after summer crops.
Many summer crops, especially corn, were planted late, in some cases excessively late, due to wet soil conditions. That coupled with a cool May and most of June has resulted in delayed crop development. Tasseling and silking for most fields was late and several fields in the area have just or are just flowering. The majority of grain sorghum hasn’t headed and some may not until late August/early September, which is a separate problem. Soybeans were also late but this isn’t as much of a problem as for the grass crops.
The problem is two-fold for producers wanting to go back to wheat this fall. First is harvesting these crops in a timely fashion and getting wheat in the ground by mid-October to allow time for wheat establishment. This also compresses the time to prepare the soil for planting and means many producers will be trying to harvest summer crops, prepare for wheat planting, and trying to plant wheat at the same time. Second is that these summer crops will use soil moisture later into the season and allow less time for soil moisture recharge, especially sorghum.
Tied to the first two points is the projected weather forecast for the next thirty to sixty days. The Climate Prediction Center is predicting below normal temperatures and above normal rainfall. Above normal rainfall is certainly beneficial as long as field work can be performed and is needed for establishing wheat. However, below normal temperatures would slow down corn and sorghum development and maturity. Through yesterday, the K-State automated weather network showed Growing Degree Unit (GDD) accumulation over 100 units short of the long-term average for corn and almost 150 units short for sorghum. This is in spite of the recent hot weather. For the Hays area accumulation is just about normal and La Crosse is actually a bit over the long-term average. That doesn’t sound too bad but two factor needs consideration.
First, the GDD number K-State provides are from a given date in the spring. Let’s take corn as an example. The accumulation of GDDs starts in early April. So if your planting was delayed until say mid-May, the crop can’t accumulate heat for the time it wasn’t in the ground, so much of the corn in the area is even further behind.
Second, the extreme heat experienced over the last several weeks slows down both corn and sorghum development. When temperatures are excessive and the crop shuts down since it can’t transpire enough water to maintain turgor (adequate water pressure in the plant) to protect itself, it slows down development. In the case of sorghum, the plant will “idle” and that delays flowering. Naturally dryland crops are more severely affected than irrigated but even irrigated is delayed.
This is one part of the equation for wheat farmers. Next week’s column will discuss wheat variety selection.
Great Bend Tribune
Published August 9, 2015
Preparing for the 2016 Wheat Crop - Part II
What’s left for producers preparing to plant the 2016 wheat crop after last week’s column? Naturally there’s plenty including variety selection.
- Fertility – Since fertilizers are a major input cost and prices have not decreased even with lower grain and fuel prices, producers really need to know where they are at in terms of soil fertility. If yields were good and/or fields received the heavy rains earlier this year, soil nitrogen levels may be low. Producers should examine how much N was removed in grain this past harvest if planting wheat after wheat, approximately 1.25 N lb/bushel of grain, or estimate how much they expect to remove if following a summer crop such as corn or grain sorghum. If trying to follow soybeans they may want to provide a nitrogen credit. They need to factor in how much fertilizer they applied for the previous crop and if they think rainfall may have leach nitrogen below the work zone. The best option is a profile N test to 24 inches. For other nutrients, a standard soil sample nutrient test is a good investment. For most producers, especially on lighter (sandier soils) it would be beneficial to check soil levels for P, K, S, and Cl. For phosphorus, it may be that after years of broadcast applications, only a little starter P is in order.
- Weeds – knowing the weed pressure in a field is critical to a successful crop. If you have problems with winter annual grass weeds or rye, a Clearfield wheat may be quite beneficial. As always starting with a weed free seedbed is crucial.
- Seed treatments – Unless grazing, treating wheat seed for insects and diseases is a good investment. These treatments are off label if producers are grazing wheat. While not controlling all pests it certainly gets the wheat off to a good start and is especially important in no-till or conservation tillage situations.
- Volunteer wheat – Controlling volunteer wheat within a mile or two of your field is crucial in helping to avoid a myriad of problems but especially wheat streak mosaic virus transmitted by the wheat curl mite and even diseases like barley yellow dwarf. The difficulty often is controlling volunteer wheat two weeks prior to planting. This often depends on rainfall and also your neighbor controlling his/hers.
That brings us to variety selection which is often difficult unless you know what the growing season will bring. As this will take more space than is left, we will tackle that topic next week.
Great Bend Tribune
August 16, 2015
Preparing For The 2016 Wheat Crop – Part III: Variety Selection
The last but certainly not the least consideration of wheat producers is variety selection. Before discussing the topic, please make a note of the following webpages for information on wheat varieties.
- The 2015 Wheat Performance Test results may be found here: http://www.bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/Item.aspx?catId=299&pubId=19059. This information is also an insert in the High Plains Journal and will be available at local extension offices soon.
- Detailed information on wheat disease and insects ratings may be found here: http://www.bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/Item.aspx?catId=299&pubId=1564. Some of this is also in the publication in number 1.
- Although the information isn’t replicated and cannot be statistically analyzed, local extension agents put out wheat demonstration plots and the information may be found by contacting your local office.
The K-State information is useful, especially disease and insect ratings, however, depending upon your location there may be no performance test data that is obtained under conditions of your area. It is still useful in a general sense.
The upside is that options for varieties are slowly improving and including better drought and heat tolerance as well as pest resistance. And long-term, the research at K-State promises improved rust and disease resistance. There isn’t space for great detail here but there are some rules of thumb that are helpful.
- If using binrun seed have it cleaned. If not grazing, strongly consider a seed treatment for disease and insect problems, especially if you are aware of problems in the field such as wireworm or diseases on the head during the 2015 harvest.
- When planting significant acreage, select several varieties adapted to the area to spread risk. Use your own experience and variety data from more than one year if it is available. The idea is to select wheat varieties with varying traits so at least one will do well. While popularity goes up and down, some producers use blends of several wheat varieties to help produce an acceptable yield. It’s not always easy since you need to select varieties with fairly similar maturities and yet different characteristics. Stagger planting dates of similar maturity varieties if possible. Again this is to spread risk.
- Look at the disease and insect ratings information and relate that to problems you typically see. Everest is the number one variety by acreage in the middle third of Kansas because of its yield and disease resistance package. This is especially important under conservation tillage situations.
- If planting on acid soils, it is important to carefully examine the tolerance to acid soils and aluminum.
- This probably should have been the first point but knowing your fields and its potential problems, especially diseases and insects is of great value when evaluating potential varieties.
- Lastly, yield is what matters so selecting adapted varieties with the best yield potential for you conditions is the overriding factor. K-State does publish milling and baking characteristics for varieties but unless you can receive a premium for a high quality wheat, yield is the only trait that matters.
The most difficult aspect of all this for farmers is that decisions are based on what happened, not what will happen.