What’s Up This Wheat? April 15-21

Hello All,

What’s Up This Wheat? Weekly highlights and resources for growing winter wheat in Eastern Nebraska.

Weather

• Nebraska Drought Monitor for April 19 – No improvement in southeast Nebraska w/moderate drought for portions of Nuckolls, Thayer, Clay, and Richardson counties
• How cold has been compared to the other coldest Aprils over the last 123 years? View the attached picture presented at yesterday’s North Central U.S. Monthly Climate and Drought Summary and Outlook Webinar (not yet posted)

Figure 1. Coldest Aprils presented at the April 19, 2018 North Central U.S. Monthly Climate and Drought Summary and Outlook Webinar

• Mid-Month Update about the weather from Tyler Williams, Cropping Systems Extension Educator for Lancaster, Cass, and Otoe counties
• Freeze injury to heads being found in Oklahoma and Kansas. Recent map of freeze injury risk in Kansas

Highlighted Media

• Nebraska Farmer Magazine: How to grow higher quality wheat, and get paid for it
• AgWeb: Kansas, Oklahoma Wheat Crops Struggling to Survive
• com: National Wheat Foundation adds quality analysis to its 2018 yield contest
  • 2018 National Winter Wheat Yield Contest – Entry form due May 15

Economics

• Trends in Global Wheat Production by David Widmar

Agronomics

• Do the mid-April winter wheat conditions explain the final yield in Nebraska (statewide)? We are at 55% Good to Excellent in 2018

Figure 2. Do the mid-April winter wheat conditions explain the final yield in Nebraska?

• CropWatch Article: It’s Time to Scout for Wheat Disease
• Winter Wheat Condition – Selection States on page 4: April 15, 2018
• Nebraska Wheat Crop Report, April 18 – by Nebraska Wheat including a summary for southeast Nebraska
• Wheat Variety Database – Great tools like head-to-head comparisons, multi-location trial analysis or varieties for Nebraska and nearby states
• Eastern Nebraska growth stage reports: Feekes 2 to 5
  • Based on reports from extension educators, Jenny Rees and Nathan Mueller
  • Winter wheat jointed normally at 13% (Feekes 6)
  • Visual Guide of Winter Wheat Development and Growth Staging
  • Growth stage map of winter wheat in Kansas

Tips

• What is happening with the winter wheat crop in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska? Join the webinar and hosting institution, Oklahoma State University Extension, on Mondays at 8:30 am CT on April 23:
• Save the Date! May 30 (Southeast NE) & June 12 (East Central NE) Winter Wheat Field Days and Variety Trial Tours
• #wheat, follow this person on Twitter – Jenny Rees @jenreesources

Please feel free to email me and the group with questions!

You can view previous weekly emails at https://croptechcafe.org.

This email is part of the Winter Wheat Works Initiative, a local Nebraska Extension effort to encourage and support growers in Eastern Nebraska to move from a strict corn-soybean rotation to a successful flex-rotation where some winter wheat acres are considered each year and strategically integrated into their cropping system.