2018 winter wheat variety trial in Washington County taken April 20. There are 31 varieties replicated 5 times, thus all the plots. This is one of 5 locations for trials in Eastern Nebraska. A big thank you to Teshome Regassa and Brian Maust for managing the trial and Hoegermeyer Farms for hosting.
Hello All,
What’s Up This Wheat? Weekly highlights and resources for growing winter wheat in Eastern Nebraska.
Weather
- Nebraska Drought Monitor for April 26 – Expansion of the abnormally dry area in southeast Nebraska up into east central Nebraska.
- Market Journal: Weather Forecast from Al Dutcher
- Soil moisture sensors in Dodge County show good soil moisture near field capacity/full moisture at 1, 2, and 3 foot depths.
- Subsoil moisture lacking in southeast Nebraska, Clay, Nuckolls, and Thayer counties
Highlight(s) in the Media
- AgWeb: Dow Introduces New Herbicide for Wheat
- Wheat Quality Council Wheat Tours starts next week, April 30 – May 3 in KS, NE, CO, and OK.
Economics
- NAFTA agreement may come May 4
- Scenario analysis/partial budget of wheat graze-out vs. grain harvest
Agronomics
- CropWatch Article: Winter Wheat Progress Across the State
- CropWatch Article: Winter Wheat Nitrogen Applications
- 2018 Nebraska Winter Wheat Condition compared to 2014 through 2017, page 6.
- USDA NASS in Nebraska will no longer be collecting weekly surveys on winter wheat progress of jointed, turning color, and mature. They will still be surveying the progress on planting, emerged, headed, and harvested for grain.
- Nebraska Wheat Crop Report, April 25 – by Nebraska Wheat including a summary for southeast Nebraska
- Eastern Nebraska growth stage reports: Feekes 2 to 5
- Yield components of wheat
- Heads per acre (function of plants per acre and tillers per plant)
- Seeds per head (function of spikelets per spike and seeds per spikelet)
- Seed weight
Tips
- Tillers matter! Tillers can contribute “as much as 70% of grain yield in a normal year.”
- Save the Date! Winter Wheat Field Days and Variety Trial Tours
- May 30, Mark Knobel’s Farm north of Fairbury, NE
- June 12, Eastern Nebraska Research & Extension Center near Mead, NE
- #wheat, follow this organization on Twitter – Nebraska CropWatch @UNL_CropWatch
Please feel free to email me and the group with comments or 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.
