Air September 18, 2002

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. If you have volunteer wheat south or west of where you or a neighbor or going to plant wheat, its time to get that stuff destroyed. We may not be at a great risk from wheat streak mosaic, but its better not to take chances. Our rule of thumb is destroy the wheat at least two weeks prior to planting.

Now, wheat seeding is a few weeks away yet and there has been some concern mentioned on whether or not to go ahead with standard fall seeding plans. Delaying fall wheat planting later than about the 20th of October is never a good idea. Some producers are justifiably concerned that a dry summer means a dry fall and the wheat may not come up. Well, we’ve got monthly rainfall data back to 1931 or 71 years worth of information. This year, May through August rainfall was about 59% of normal. So does that mean anything for September to December precipitation? I went back and looked at how many years of that 71 we had May to August rainfall below normal and that means anything less than 100%. 35 years of 71 we had May to August rainfall below 100% of the long term average. What then happend in the next four months, September to December? 15 of those 35 years we had more than 100% of normal, 20 years we had less than 100% of normal. Probably not statistically significant, BUT a slight trend to indicate a dry summer can lead to a dry fall. Well, the last four months that we’ve experienced just weren’t dry, they were real dry. So how many of those years did we have 59% or less of normal? WE’ve only had summers that dry on 5 years. In those five years, the following four month period was wetter than normal 3 times, and drier than normal 2 times. So, using the same logic, we see a trend towards wetter than normal falls following realllllly dry summers. What does all of this mean for your wheat planting? Carry on like normal. Wait until the Hessiam fly free date of October 5th to plant. Remember that’s the planting date, note the date of emergence. Use normal seeding rates and try to be through seeding by October 20th. Do I think we’ll have more carryover nitrate than normal? Initial soil test results don’t indicate so, probably because May was quite wet and since then there hasn’t been enough rainfall to break down organic matter.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2002.

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