Air June 28 - July 5, 2006

What to do with volunteer wheat

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Wheat harvest is wrapping up about the time that we often are just getting well underway. And then parts of the county actually got some rain. All of this is shaping up to make sure that we could have a great crop of volunteer wheat before long. We all know that volunteer wheat has a problem. It serves as the perfect host for the wheat curl mite. The wheat curl mite, in and of itself, does not cause a lot of feeding damage. They are tiny and just don’t take that much out of the crop. However, every little wheat curl mite comes with a bonus guest known as the wheat streak mosaic virus. Wheat streak is an extremely devastating disease. If a field becomes infected with wheat streak in the fall, you can probably expect at least a 30 to 40% yield loss, and in some years it can be as high as 80 to 90% yield loss. The wheat curl mite is a delicate little creature. It needs green foliage to live and volunteer wheat or any of the foxtail grasses to survive the summer. That’s why we tell you to destroy volunteer wheat at least two weeks prior to planting wheat. The way this summer has been going, there will be a strong temptation to let that volunteer wheat grow for some livestock forage in September or October. But that forage may come with one heck of a price for your or your neighbor’s 2007 wheat crop. You would be better off to destroy that volunteer wheat in the next few weeks and then plant some triticale for late summer or early fall forage. Triticale is not a good host for wheat curl mites, and can produce a great deal of late summer and fall forage. A much better option! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte.

Clearfield Wheat - Is it for our area?

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Most wheat producers have probably been hearing quite a bit about Clearfield wheat over the past couple of years. Clearfield wheat is a new weed control option, specifically a cheat and winter brome weed control option. The herbicide is called Beyond and now a new entry in the market - ClearMax. This herbicide is fairly effective on many grass species. The resistance to the herbicide was not a result of genetic engineering, but was a naturally occurring gene found in some wheat plants. It is not a GMO. With a fall treatment, Beyond can do a very good job of controlling true cheat and give at least fair to good control of downy brome. Trying to use either Beyond or ClearMax on non Clearfield wheats will yield a train wreck, plain and simple - so don’t try it!! The herbicide companies, the wheat breeders and I will all tell you that rotation is the best way to deal with a cheat or winter annual brome weed problem. But there may be some cases where this is not an option and use of the Clearfield technology could provide an out. However, we aren’t there yet! While there are several Clearfield wheats available, none of them, at this time, have resistance to soil borne or spindle streak mosaic. This disease is in virtually every wheat field in the area and whether or not we see it every year depends on the weather. Planting a non soil borne resistant variety is merely a roll of the dice. There are several Clearfield varieties with soil borne resistance in the pipeline and they are looking pretty good, but it is still a year or two before they are going to be available to the grower. So in the meantime hang on, rotate your crops if you can and just be patient! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte.

Evaluating Hail Damage

This is Ag Outlook 2006 on 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte, Geary County, K-State Research and Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent. Unfortunately, it seems like whenever we get rain this time of year, we seem to be able to get some hail with it and while a little hail is okay, we all know what a lot can do. The day following a hail storm can be very disheartening as you start to look at your crops. While the damage can be as bad as it looks, fortunately it isn’t always that bad. Granted, if you have a major hail storm and the wheat is ready to cut, it can be a total loss. We’ve already seen that kind of damage this year in the region. However crops, especially in the early to mid vegetative stages of growth can suffer what looks like a whole lot of damage and yet suffer little yield loss in the end. In simulated hail damage, corn just a week or two from silking had 80% of its leaf area removed and yet only lost about 1/3 of it’s potential yield. Obviously corn is going to be the furthest along right now. Milo has an incredible ability to produce tillers after being damaged. It will cause a little delay in maturity, but just stay away and let it do it’s thing. And soybeans are truly amazing. IF the plant has not yet started to bloom, you can have 80% loss of leaf area and end up with less than a 10% yield reduction. Even in the early podding stages you will lose less than 20% of yield and that is a small enough yield loss that it doesn’t justify replanting! All of this, of course, requires some kind of rainfall to maintain normal plant growth. And hay crops, especially bromegrass are another story. But, with heavy hail on native grass, you can expect a flush of vegetative growth, new leaves if you will, and that can result in some very high quality forage much later in the season than you’d normally expect! This has been Ag Outlook 2006 on the Talk of JC, 1420 KJCK, I’m Chuck Otte.

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