By Bruce Cochrane
Scientists with the University of Manitoba, in partnership with western Canada's winter wheat growers have launched a research project aimed at expanding the seeding window for winter wheat.
Winter Cereals Manitoba, the Saskatchewan Winter Cereals development commission, the Alberta Wheat commission and Ducks Unlimited in partnership with Growing Forward 2 have launched a four year research program under which 11 agronomic research projects will be undertaken.
Jake Davidson, the executive director of Winter Cereals Canada, says the project that attracted the most interest is work being conducted by the University of Manitoba to extend the seeding window for winter wheat.
Jake Davidson-Winter Cereals Canada:
Currently right now it's kind of an August 15 to September 15 type of a thing.
Crop Insurance has limits on how far into the fall you can go and we want to find out exactly what do we have to do to make winter wheat a viable crop if we plant up to the first of October or possibly later than that.
The more of a seeding window we get the better it works out for us because winter wheat always suffers from what the weather has done to all the other crops.
Our primary crop as far as stubble is canola and if canola is late, we're late, and if we're late, that often deters people from seeding.
We want to find ways to make the investment in seeding winter wheat after the current traditional time period much more appealing to producers.
This is quite an extensive project, trials being run all over Manitoba, different seeding dates, early and late, just to see exactly what happens and what technology is needed to make a late crop better or an early crop not grow too far into maturity before the winter freeze up comes.
Davidson says if you can get the crop in the ground, get it better established and get it to the optimum spot for winter hardiness that will improve survival in the spring and a strong crop will always give you better yields.
Source: Farmscape