Wheat Pete's Word, June 30: Residual N, lodged wheat, flooded fields, and fungicide decisions

Lodged crops, flooded crops, and burning crops — there’s no shortage of crops under stress this week in Canada.

Of course, there are also some tall, fast-growing corn crops, and in this week’s Wheat Pete’s Word, host Peter Johnson is covering the top agronomy questions of the week. From available nitrogen causing some issues to when to expect N losses, and when to stop throwing money at a low yield potential, Johnson has more than enough information to keep you listening for 17 minutes.

Have a question you’d like Johnson to address or some yield results to send in? Disagree with something he’s said? Leave him a message at 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at [email protected].

Summary

• Happy Canada Day! Let’s take time to celebrate, and also take time to reflect
• Second dose progress, including Wheat Pete
• Dr. Dave Hooker. University of Guelph, Ridgetown campus, awarded the Ron Pitblabo teaching award
• Wild weather — we’re going from too dry, to way too wet. Five inches of rain in a short time, nine inches in Chatham-Kent, definitely too much water in some places
• Market response is insult to injury for many Western farmers
• Crops in Ontario are flying — everyone is going to make knee-high by first of July, five-inch wide leaves
• 2″ a day of corn growth and likely going to speed up
• It’s not perfect everywhere. A tornado at Chatsworth, green snap, and root lodging reported in some areas
• Will this rain help the wheat crop? Yup, if you have a week to two weeks left of grain fill, but less impact on southern areas
• Harvest has not started yet because of rainfall, but this coming week it may begin
• Tremendous amount of wheat lodging happening. Why? High stem counts, cool weather in tillering, slender stems, more available N
• Tramp/tramlines have standing wheat, why? Less competition, thicker stems (see below)
• Late lodging has less yield impact, and poor wheat doesn’t lodge (a bushel per acre per day lost for every day lodged ahead of harvest)
• Check out the Wheat School once it’s up! Consider a pre-harvest pass of glyphosate and combine across direction of laying down, reel forward and down, pick that grain up and go slow
• Get that crop out of the field as soon as possible always but especially when lodged as DON levels will climb and more sprouting risk too
• PGRs: did they work or not? 150 lb N with Moddus, standing, 120 lb no PGR, some lodging. Yes, they work, but early wheat with 130 lb plus Manipulator is lodging. What’s happening? Taller, more tillers, bigger yield potential. PGRs can’t prevent all lodging
• Never mind trying to build organic matter — conserve what you have first!
• Losing N on corn? No ponding, no run-off in Bruce County but 4″ of rain quickly. Likely didn’t lose much. But in other areas where there are “lakes” = losing N (saturated soil could lose 5% of N per day)
• Fungicides in the West: excellent wheat crop, dry bias, but there is soil moisture, is there a benefit to fungicide with extreme heat on the way? What’s your yield potential? Will grain fill be short? For some areas with no soil moisture, stop spending money on the crop
• But, if you’ve got some solid potential and soil moisture, fungicides offer some stay-green benefits, too (even with lower disease pressure)
• Ankle-high wheat in head, don’t spend a penny
• Heading wheat with stripe rust but extreme heat ahead — if it’s a heat-tolerant variant of the disease it could cause a significant issue

A field at Grande Pointe. The whole field lodged except the sprayer tracks. ? pic.twitter.com/ODbeQ58feg

— Wendy Zhang (@Wendyy_Zhang) June 28, 2021

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