March 19, 2019 Wheat Update

“The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,

   but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.” -Proverbs 21:5

We are in a critical time period for wheat development that impacts seeds/head. If more tillers are needed, then it is a priority to manage for more heads/plant. Thus, you may see more updates over then next while. After checking wheat yesterday, it appears there is a range of conditions in our area. The cool winter and cold early spring has reserved the vast majority of growth to the period between emergence and going dormant last fall. So, as can even be seen visually from the road; plant date made a difference on growth and tillers that we have now. Some places we are seeing tillers that had time to put out 4-6 tillers on 45-50 plants/ sq ft and others where we see 2-3 on 22-26 plants/sq ft. This is a broad range in terms of how we should manage this crop.

Chad Lee of the University of Kentucky studied the practices of the top 30 farmer contestants on high yield wheat. He found that:

• 100% use foliar fungicide

• 100% use herbicides

• 97% use foliar insecticide

• 87% split apply Nitrogen

1. Nitrogen Due to the cold wet weather inhibiting growth of roots and tillers, a split application of Nitrogen will probably be needed. The exception would be the scenario like was mentioned of 4-6 tillers on 45-50 plants. Again, fall growth and plants/acre or foot drives this decision.

2. Insects After a cold winter, I have not seen aphids, yet! However, aphids survive in their natural gycerol antifreeze up to -20℉ . With temperatures moving to highs in the 50s and 60s and lows that stay above 32℉, this could change rapidly. Insecticide is the cheap and the only way to prevent aphids from vectoring the barley yellow dwarf virus.

3. Weeds Winter annuals are starting to wake up and also marestail rosettes. A few more days of sun and warm temperatures will put us to getting a good kill on weeds. Wheat with later planted dates will be smaller increasing competition before mid spring canopy occurs. Wider rows or small plants make herbicide a critical component of yield.

4. Fungus Beck’s PFR shows that fungicide applied at flowering returned a 4 year $9.98/acre ROI. This impacts our 4th and last ratio we consider in wheat yield: weight/seed. This was with spending $15.00/acre on fungicide before app cost. This application controls Fusarium Head Blight. There are cases in wet years that an application prior to flowering will work.  However, PFR has found applying fungicide to wheat prior to flowering has been hit or miss over the years. Keep in mind they were running full rates with costs around $12-17/acre. But, still in some cases the yields were almost even or sometimes less than the control yield. If, it is determined that fungicide is needed, running a ½ rate of Stratego for around $5.00 can be an option when included with your herbicide pass.

Don’t hesitate to call with any questions. Am happy to go over a plan for your specific operation and situation.

February 21, 2019

I wanted to touch base on some thoughts for scouting wheat when the snow melts and the ground firms up. We have had an unusually long winter with excess snow, cold, and moisture. In spite of the late fall and other setbacks, we want to go back to the basics. This will help us focus on what we can do, instead of the items that are out of our control.

A reminder on what makes wheat yield:

-Plants/acre

-Heads/plant

-Seeds/head

-Weight/seed

So, with this in mind let’s start checking off our list what we have and then go to what we can do from here:

-Plants/acre We can not do anything about this now, but observation will help us determine our yield potential from here. For top potential we should see 22-25 viable plants/sq foot. If we have less than 20 good yields are still possible but the 100% potential has come off. This number will help us decide how much should we spend on Fungicides, etc.

-Heads/plant Ideally, we want to see by joint 3-4 tillers per plant. Due to the late fall, which was the best time for tillering, we probably only have 2. The main shoot and a tiller. If this fits your situation, as soon as it is dry enough or firm enough to go over the ground, we should front load 40-0-0-12 units of N and Sulfur to boost tillering before joint stage. If you have 3-4 tillers already and have good fall growth you may want to hold off on N if the N is sufficient for now. We would like to see around 80-100 heads/sq foot as we head towards joint.

Seeds/head & Weight/seed As we get to the joint stage we will want to apply the rest of the N for the grain fill. Also, we need to be looking at fungicides. Here is an article from K State: In general, the largest reductions in disease severity and greatest increases in wheat yield or grain quality occur when fungicides are applied between full extension of the flag leaves and anthesis (when the male flower parts have just begin to emerge). Applications intended for the management of glume blotch or head scab should be made between the beginning of anthesis and and 50 percent flowering. and here is an excerpt from David Hughes on managing this cost efficiently: If we are concerned about:

preventing and suppressing Fusarium head blight while having to deal with an early Stripe Rust infection. Because wheat is a “low margin” crop, many farmers did not want to apply fungicide twice to combat these infections. Farmers who applied a lower labeled rate of a preventative fungicide (ex. 2 to 4 oz. of Priaxor®) during stem elongation and before flag leaf emergence (about Feekes 6.5), were able to hold off the Stripe Rust. They were then able to suppress the Fusarium head blight with an application of Caramba, Proline, or Prosaro at flowering.

Do not use a single action strobilurin fungicide for Fusarium head blight as it has been shown to actually increase the toxin levels in the infected wheat.

If you need anything like assistance with scouting or input to help make a decision let me know.