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Rolla, ND | Mike SE IL - 6/25/2015 06:42
We have always had wheat. We have a lot of sandy ground and before irrigation it fit our rotation. With irrigation we can double crop soybeans and get 3 crops in 2 years. Local elevator yesterday said they're not buying ANY wheat this year because their buyer has rejected every sample they have submitted this year because of vomitoxin. Variety, fungicide, nothing seems to make a difference. I've heard in SW Illinois they are not buying any wheat because it has sprouted in the head.
I should pause and explain that the southern Illinois wheat market is Siemers in Teutopolis. They pretty much make or break the wheat market here.
I talked with a cousin last night and both of us are considering giving up on trying to grow wheat.
30 years ago we cleaned wheat seed out of our bins and planted a couple bushels to the acre and grew 65 bushel high quality wheat. Today we are buying premium seed treated with fungicides, insecticides, any old 'cide you can think of, planting it to a specified population, split applying nitrogen, applying fungicide, irrigating ... and growing 80-90 bushel wheat that nobody will buy.
Any suggestions? And no, getting a bunch of chickens is not an option ;)
That's been a lot of push in ND to corn and soybeans because a bushel is pretty much a bushel and the wheat is discount, discount, discount. Especially the durum, looks good on the board and on a piece of paper but you can have durum not a single elevator will take except maybe as discounted feed and the crop insurance says nothing wrong with it, you have no claim. Plus if it has too much vomitoxin, you can take a loan and forfeit, but if the vomitoxin is too high you just gave them the grain, but it doesn't count against your loan, you have to go out and buy grain or pay the loan back.
Hard wheat is a lot better because the breeders have worked hard to get resistance to scab into the varieties. That said most growers have backed off on their best resistance because we had a few not too bad years, the fungicides that we are using are definitely helping and so on.
Growing wheat where corn is a major crop, I haven't figured out how you guys do it. The scab levels must be just waiting, if you get rain and especially rain and heavy dew, I would think you would be just basically screwed because the period you are trying to protect is too long.
The head fill period on winter wheat is longer than spring and that's where a lot of the yield comes from but one spray at heading just doesn't last long enough. Normally we get a break in the weather normally we kind of squeak in but it's no guarantee.
I think we can do better on scab/vomitoxin control with fungicides but would have to go to multiple applications but if you stay on label, it's not possible to go too far. There is a window after the fungicides wear off that an infection could still get to vomitoxin.
We have the additional problem with barley that you keep the hull on, it really helps wheat a lot that the chaff is thrown away, at least the barley is faster so the window not as great.
What I think the biggest problem in winter wheat concerning scab is the unevenness, there are tillers heading out after most apply the fungicide. They don't do much for yield, but there they are, flowering and filling down in the canopy, the worst possible location, with no fungicide. It only takes a bad kernel or two in a sample and it's too bad for you.
I assume you are growing soft wheat and I have no idea of the varieties and how much resistance they have to scab but you have to start with as good as you can get in that department because the resistance is always there and the fungicides and such is just to improve what you start with. If you are growing susceptible varieties, I doubt you have any reasonable chance, you are just playing Russian Roulette.
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I've about had it with wheat
