Air September 17, 2003

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. While it seems that it is sort of a slow time of year, we are half way through September already. Harvest is gearing up and we're just a few short weeks away from the serious start of wheat planting time.

Let's take some time to talk about volunteer wheat this morning. For years and years we have always talked about getting that volunteer wheat destroyed at least two weeks prior to wheat planting in adjoining fields. The reason is simple, wheat curl mites live in volunteer wheat and will blow with most any wind and if they land on wheat within say ½ mile they will still be alive and will start to feed on that wheat. Now wheat curl mites in and of themselves can do a little bit of damage from their feeding. But the far larger problem is that wheat curl mites carry the wheat streak mosaic virus and wheat streak mosaic can decimate a wheat field. We don't see wheat streak mosaic every year, in fact we may go years without seeing it. But we periodically see a wheat field that gets just hammered by wheat streak mosaic and it isn't pretty! If you are in a rotation that includes wheat you are much more likely to see volunteer wheat adjoining a new wheat field. With the recent rains, we have a lot of volunteer wheat growing right now and there are a lot of producers thinking that maybe they shouldn't be working that ground too soon. Or if you have cattle, that volunteer wheat can provide a few weeks of good forage especially when there isn't much left in most pastures. So what is the real risk if that volunteer is not destroyed? There is always risk from leaving volunteer wheat. Even in this year, when there was nothing growing in those fields for nearly two months, we could still have wheat curl mites blow in from host wild grasses that were barely hanging on. Compared to other years I have to believe that we are at a lower risk factor. If you want to graze that volunteer then I would start to get some cattle on it as soon as possible to reduce the amount of green leaf material out there. The less green the less risk from mites. The bottom line is that we probably should be controlling that volunteer. But if you really feel that you have reasons to keep that volunteer then at least plant a variety, such as 2137, Jagger or Jagalene that does have some wheat streak mosaic resistance.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2003.

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