Wheat Pete’s Word, Apr 12: To go or not to go? Consider compaction, temperature, and upcoming forecast

It’s summertime, says Peter Johnson, host of Wheat Pete’s Word.

Well, maybe not quite, but it’s sure feeling a heck of a lot more like spring out there. In this week’s episode of the Word, Johnson discusses erosion and tillage, record temperatures, a positive attitude, and more.

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:

So many questions! This of course makes Wheat Pete happy. Keep ’em coming.
Last week it was really cold, and we were still getting freezing temperatures. This week, we are going to set records for how warm it is. Buckle up!
The wind is just sucking the moisture out of the ground from lakes and fields, dry enough to run in a lot of fields. Especially on the wheat
Getting average drying indexes in April is really a surprise
Our condolences to Dr. Tim Henshaw’s family. He was a veterinarian up in Simcoe County and travelled quite widely in the dairy industry. He suddenly passed away last week
John in Heron County lost his house to a fire. These things happen, but let’s reach out to our friends and family and make sure they are ok
David, an agronomist from Kenya, follows Pete on twitter, and participates a lot. We reach across the world! Send in your questions!
Positive Pete maybe should be Wheat Pete’s alter-ego?
If you think durum is the weak sister of the wheat family, canary seed is the runt pig of the whole litter, says Jason, an agronomist out of Manitoba. It’s just sensitive to so many things. Lodging, fusarium head blight, etc
Coated clover seed — we’re getting some negative feedback about coated clover seed. We did not see any benefit in our research of going over six pounds of clover seed but that’s pure clover seed
Some in the turf grass industry do see a benefit of it
Vertical tillage using a John Deere high speed disc…how do we avoid compaction? It all comes back to how dry is the soil when you do it. And that often happens with these vertical tillage tools — we’re antsy, and we want to get going
If you’re breaking through the frost, it’s too wet
Lots of manure going out on fields this week — let’s make sure the soil is fit, please
We hate slowing down the planting process, but minimizing compaction will end up paying you dividends in the long run
It could get cool again next week, Pete is pushing for split applications of N. Don’t try to put it all down at once
If you’re over 60 stems per square foot, you likely should consider split nitrogen. Don’t put it all on because of stem elongation, which is likely still two-to-three weeks away
We only need about 35 pounds of nitrogen in the plant right now
The temperature does matter in terms of nitrogen loss
Am I putting on more sulphur than I need?
Sulpher demand is really high in the early going on wheat
Keep in mind alfalfa is a huge sulphur feeder